Horus 62 launched just after 10AM on the 11th of August, from the Auburn Community Oval. Weather conditions were excellent, with light winds and a clear sky – great for taking photos! The flight reached an altitude of 34km (6km higher than we expected!), and landed in a paddock north of Clare. Unfortunately the Wenet imagery payload stopped transmitting part-way into the ascent but it did continue to capture pictures to its internal SD card, like this great shot of the Adelaide area from 28km altitude:

Launch

We had a good turnout at the launch site, with quite a few AREG members and some visitors from the mid-north areas.

A big thanks to Michaela VK3FUR for capturing some great photos of the launch activities at the Auburn Community Oval! Some of these photos are in the slideshow below:

Flight, Tracking, Chase and Recovery

After launch, the chase teams headed north to visit Matt VK5ZM and Peter VK5KX, who had set up a tracking station to the north-east of Clare to provide reliable Wenet reception throughout the flight. Using Peter’s auto-tracking antenna system as a guide, we were even able to spot the balloon mid-flight, and continue to watch it right until it burst at an altitude of 34640m, well over 6 km higher than the expected burst altitude of 28km!

Horus 62 flight path

After burst the chase teams headed onwards to the predicted landing area, hoping to catch a glimpse of the payload on descent. While we were able to spot it on the way down, it was a bit too far away for any photos…

The payloads landed on the edge of a paddock, and the chase teams headed to a nearby farmhouse to get permission to enter the area. The farmer was friendly and had no problems with us driving in to recover the payloads, however we soon received a phone call from the neighbouring farmer, who had been given a heads up about the payloads landing, and had already picked them up!

Unfortunately not as much care was taken with the payloads as normal, so some will require some repairs and rebuild to be flight-ready again.

Horus 62 Flight Statistics

Wenet Payload

This flight used our ‘Wenet HQ’ payload, which features a Picam HQ camera, with a fairly decent lens in front of it. The payload also used Ruihi batteries instead of the usual Energizer Lithiums.

While the payload initially performed fine, for an unknown reason it stopped transmitting at about 14km on ascent. We were quite concerned that the entire payload might have shut down (perhaps due to battery failure?), however on recovery we found that it was still operating, and analysis of the SD card contents showed it had been capturing images all throughout the flight, right up until we opened the box to turn it off.

A selection of the best photos from the payload are as follows:

Wenet imagery from Horus 62

Thanks to Peter VK5KX, Matt VK5ZM, Autumn VK5CLD and Peter VK5APR for running Wenet receive stations for this flight!

Horus Binary Telemetry Payloads

Both of the Horus Binary telemetry payloads performed perfectly throughout this flight (as we would hope, given these are our primary tracking payloads!). The test payload running a single Ruihi Lithium AA cell performed fine, indicating these cells are probably suitable for use on future launches in place of the Energizer AAs.

Thanks to the following stations that helped track these payloads:

HORUS-V2 Payload: BARC-RRR, VK3APJ, VK3TNU, VK5AKH, VK5AKK, VK5ALG, VK5ARG, VK5CLD-9, VK5HW, VK5IS, VK5KX-9, VK5KX-i5, VK5LN, VK5NEX, VK5NTM, VK5QI-1,VK5QI-9, VK5RK, VK5SFA, VK5SPJ, VK5ST-4, VK5TRM, VK5TUX, VK5WE, VK5ZM, VK5ZQV, VK5ZMD

VK5ARG Payload: BARC-RRR, VK3TNU, VK5AI, VK5AKH, VK5AKK, VK5ALG, VK5ARG, VK5CLD-9, VK5KX-9, VK5NEX, VK5QI-9, VK5ST-4, VK5TRM, VK5WE, VK5ZBI, VK5ZM, VK5MHZ

Full statistics on how many packets each station received, and their reported Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), are available on the flight dashboard.

TheThingsNetwork Payload

Liam’s TheThingsNetwork payload performed very well this flight, with 91 stations receiving telemetry, including one to the east of Bendigo, over 630km away! A map showing the receiver locations is below, with more detail available on the flight dashboard.

Conclusion

Thanks to all that took part in this flight, from those helping at the launch site, chasing, tracking, or just watching at home! We’re hoping to get another few flights off before the end of the year, so stay tuned to the AREG blog!

Update 7th Aug: Launch is now planned to be from the Auburn Oval, with predictions trending generally north, landing near Spalding.

AREG’s High-Altitude Ballooning sub-group, Project Horus, is planning their next launch for Sunday the 11th of August, with a planned launch time of 10 AM ACST. If we have to scrub due to weather, the backup launch dates will be either the 18th or 25th of August (though we will try and avoid the 18th due to the Remembrance Day contest).

TRACKING LINKS

• Flight Tracking via SondeHub-Amateur: https://amateur.sondehub.org/#!mt=Mapnik&mz=9&qm=12h&mc=-33.86622,138.6735
• Live Wenet Imagery: https://ssdv.habhub.org/
• Telemetry Dashboard: https://grafana.v2.sondehub.org/d/cdtrdbygdijgga/horus-62?orgId=1&from=now-3h&to=now&refresh=1m

This launch is currently planned to be performed from the Auburn Community Oval, with the launch team arriving on site from around 9:00-9:30 AM.

This will be a bit bigger than our last flight, and will feature a re-flight of our new Wenet ‘HQ’ imagery payload. The payload list currently stands at:

• Wenet HQ imagery on 443.5 MHz.
• Primary Horus Binary telemetry on 434.200 MHz
• Experimental Horus Binary payload, using a different battery brand, on 434.210 MHz
• TheThingsNetwork tracking payload, using the AU915 band-plan.

During the flight, all the payloads can be tracked lived on the SondeHub-Amateur tracker here!

There is also a flight telemetry dashboard available here.

Primary Telemetry – Horus Binary 434.200 MHz – HORUS-V2

The primary tracking telemetry will be transmitted on 434.200 MHz using the Horus Binary 4FSK data mode. Amateurs in the Adelaide and Central SA region are also encouraged to get involved with the flight through receiving and uploading flight telemetry from our 70cm band tracking beacons. Every piece of telemetry data is valuable to the flight tracking and recovery teams so if you can help join the distributed receiver network to collect that data you will be making an important contribution to the project!

If you try receiving the telemetry from this flight, you’ll need a SSB-capable 70cm receiver (or a SDR), and the Horus-GUI telemetry decoder software. A brief guide on setting this up is available here: https://github.com/projecthorus/horusdemodlib/wiki/1.1-Horus-GUI-Reception-Guide-(Windows-Linux-OSX)

Listeners that already have Horus-GUI installed are encouraged to update to the latest version, which is available at this link.

Note that you will need to use a USB ‘dial’ frequency of 434.199 MHz for the 4FSK signal to be centred in your receiver passband and hence be decodable.

Experimental Battery Payload – Horus Binary 434.210 MHz – VK5ARG

An experimental payload will be transmitting on 434.210 MHz using the Horus Binary 4FSK data mode, and can be received in the same way as the primary tracking payload, with information above. For this payload you will need to use a USB ‘dial’ frequency of 434.209 MHz.

This payload is another test of the Riuhu FR1505 Lithium AA cells, which performed well on our last launch. This time we’ll be flying a ‘cut down’ tracking payload, weighing in at only 35g and using a single AA lithium cell.

Wenet Imagery – 443.500 MHz

Imagery on this flight will be transmitted via the Wenet downlink system, which uses 115kbit/s Frequency-Shift-Keying to send HD snapshots. Reception of the Wenet imagery requires a Linux computer, a RTLSDR, and a 70cm antenna with some gain (a 5-element Yagi is usually enough).

This payload will re-fly the PiCamera HQ, which was previously launched on Horus 60. We hope to get a clearer day this time to get some nice imagery of our state, rather than just images of cloud!

Wenet imagery from Horus 60

A guide on how to get set up to receive the Wenet signal is available here: https://github.com/projecthorus/wenet/wiki/Wenet-RX-Instructions-(Linux-using-Docker)

Please note the transmit frequency of 443.5 MHz, which may require listeners to re-configure their Wenet setup. Listeners who are already setup to receive Wenet should consider updating their decoding software to the latest version with update instructions available here. If you received Horus 60, then no software updates are required.

During the flight, the live imagery will be available at this link: http://ssdv.habhub.org/

TheThingsNetwork Payload – 915 MHz LIPD Band

This flight will also fly a LoRaWAN payload built by Liam VK5ALG, relaying positions via TheThingsNetwork (TTN), a global Internet-of-Things network with hundreds of receiver gateways across Australia. You can find out more about how TheThingsNetwork works here.

The aim of this payload is to see what kind of range is possible on the 915 MHz band, and also test a new telemetry gateway which will forward TTN telemetry to the SondeHub-Amateur tracker.

This launch was a success, with the payload recovered close to the predicted landing area! A short writeup will be posted in the next few weeks, but for now the flight dashboard can be viewed here. The next Horus launch should be sometime in early July.

AREG’s High-Altitude Ballooning sub-group, Project Horus, is planning their next launch for Sunday the 26th of May, with a planned launch time of 10 AM ACST. If we have to scrub due to weather, the backup launch date is the 2nd of June.

UPDATE: This launch will be conducted from the Mt Barker High School Oval.

This launch is currently planned to be performed from the Mt Barker High School Oval, which is accessible from Stephenson Street, Mt Barker.

Mt Barker Launch Site

The launch team will be arriving on site from around 9:00-9:30 AM. Visitors are welcome!

This will be one of the smallest launches we’ve done in a while, with the payload mass for this flight totalling under 300g, and currently including:

• Primary Horus Binary telemetry on 434.200 MHz
• Experimental Horus Binary payload, using a different battery brand, on 434.210 MHz
• TheThingsNetwork tracking payload, using the AU915 band-plan.

During the flight, all the payloads can be tracked lived on the SondeHub-Amateur tracker here!

There will also be a live dashboard showing telemetry from the flight, which is available here.

Predicted flight path as of Friday 24th May.

Primary Telemetry – Horus Binary 434.200 MHz – HORUS-V2

The primary tracking telemetry will be transmitted on 434.200 MHz using the Horus Binary 4FSK data mode. Amateurs in the Adelaide and Central SA region are also encouraged to get involved with the flight through receiving and uploading flight telemetry from our 70cm band tracking beacons. Every piece of telemetry data is valuable to the flight tracking and recovery teams so if you can help join the distributed receiver network to collect that data you will be making an important contribution to the project!

If you try receiving the telemetry from this flight, you’ll need a SSB-capable 70cm receiver (or a SDR), and the Horus-GUI telemetry decoder software. A brief guide on setting this up is available here: https://github.com/projecthorus/horusdemodlib/wiki/1.1-Horus-GUI-Reception-Guide-(Windows-Linux-OSX)

Listeners that already have Horus-GUI installed are encouraged to update to the latest version, which is available at this link.

Note that you will need to use a USB ‘dial’ frequency of 434.199 MHz for the 4FSK signal to be centred in your receiver passband and hence be decodable.

Experimental Battery Payload – Horus Binary 434.210 MHz – VK5ARG

An experimental payload will be transmitting on 434.210 MHz using the Horus Binary 4FSK data mode, and can be received in the same way as the primary tracking payload, with information above. For this payload you will need to use a USB ‘dial’ frequency of 434.209 MHz.

This payload will be using Riuhu FR1505 Lithium AA cells instead of the Energizer L91 cells that we usually fly. With suspiciously similar specifications, and at 50% of the price of Energizers, these are worth investigating! We’ll be looking closely at the voltage of this and the primary payload throughout the flight.

TheThingsNetwork Payload – 915 MHz LIPD Band

This flight will also fly a LoRaWAN payload built by Liam VK5ALG, this time relaying positions via TheThingsNetwork (TTN), a global Internet-of-Things network with hundreds of receiver gateways across Australia. You can find out more about how TheThingsNetwork works here.

The aim of this payload is to see what kind of range is possible on the 915 MHz band, and also test a new telemetry gateway which will forward TTN telemetry to the SondeHub-Amateur tracker.

Future Launches

This year we hope to increase our launch cadence with more smaller launches, giving more club members (and the wider amateur radio community!) the opportunity to get involved with our flights. We’ve currently got a few ideas in the works, including:

• A night launch with a modulated optical beacon.
• A return of the HQ Wenet payload
• 360˚ Video Camera
• Airborne Meshtastic node experiment

Stay tuned!