[amsat-bb] Re: SimSAT Airborne

[Nate Duehr]

On Jul 25, 2007, at 2:50 PM, Robert Bruninga wrote:

> What a fun time had by all.  More to come.  Lots of photos...
> AND LESSONS LEARNED (again and again...)

Sorry for the brief foray into balloons instead of satellites, but  
perhaps others would find this interesting also... and since we're  
calling a balloon a "simulated satellite" now here on the AMSAT  
list... (GRIN)...

If you want to speed through the lessons, get in touch with these  
guys, Bob:

http://www.eoss.org - Edge of Space Sciences

They've flown more than 100 balloon flights, all different kinds of  
balloons and payloads, and really have it down to a science.  They  
even have Rick N0KKZ who built custom flight prediction software for  
them using winds-aloft data, and he's RARELY off by very far on the  
actual touchdown zone these days.  I won't embarass him further since  
I'll CC him on this reply, but seriously -- it's good stuff, from  
everything I've heard.

They also have some incredibly good/fast DF'ers amongst the group,  
guys who have been chasing balloons for close to 2 decades now.  If  
some of those guys could be coaxed into writing some articles, the  
tidbits of information us other more "Amateur" DF'ers would/could  
learn would be incredible.   Balloons around here regularly head off  
from the Front Range of Colorado into Eastern Kansas or Southeastern  
Nebraska, and these guys are always "right there" most of the time,  
ready to scoop up the payload and head back in.

I've been chasing down Aircraft ELT's for over ten years, and  
frankly, those guys in that group are another notch better than I am  
at DF'ing.  They're really good.

Give 'em a shout and see if they have any of their presentations  
they've done over the years or other stuff they've only presented at  
their meetings here in Colorado available somewhere - or even pester  
Rick to put some more of that type of thing on their website.    
What's there is pretty incredible, but i always want MORE!  (GRIN)

--
Nate Duehr, WY0X
nate at natetech.com