Last year I tried to talk to the ARBONET balloon and was not successful, so I decided this year I would try to do it and be successful.

I called Dan Brookshire (KE5LHC)and Anthony Hibbitts (KE5RIP) and we decided to go for it. The launch was scheduled for March 28 2009, with a backup date of April 11, 2009. We contacted the Shops at Legacy to see if we could use their parking structure since it was high and had a great view to the east.

The weather prediction for March 28 looked very bad; On Wednesday before the launch, the launch was scrubbed. The backup date did not work as nobody realized it was Easter weekend and most people were out of town or with family. The date was moved to October.

I had forgotten about it until I saw a posting Wednesday October 14 that the launch would be Saturday October 17. I called Dan and he was up for it. Anthony had moved to Ohio. I called the Shops at Legacy and the lady was not sure. Usually they are not busy during the day but the parking structure fills up on the weekend evenings. However, this weekend was Texas/Oklahoma Football weekend and she was worried that there would be no room as they expected people to come to the restaurants to watch the game on TV. She was also worried that we might screw up the television signals. (I assured her we were on another band.) Finally she was worried about insurance liability. She said she would check and get back to me. I called back on Friday and her receptionist said she would get back to me after lunch. I called again at 4:45 and the receptionist again told me she would get back to me. She never did.

So Dan and I scrambled to find another location. He checked out some places on US75 but no luck. In the meantime I was looking at topo maps to see where we had good views to the east. There is a ridge in Plano so we looked for something on it that was easy to get to. Dan found a Fire Station near Russel Park and the terrain was good sloping down to the East. He checked with the Fire Station and it seemed like a lot of red tape. But the park had a lot of open space. So the plan was to set up there.

Saturday morning I got up to load up the truck and discovered I had a flat tire. I fixed the flat, loaded the antennas into the truck, and headed out to Russel Park. Dan called me and said it was not going to work. When we got there the parking lots were full and there were 8 soccer games We looked around and found a parking lot in the North East corner of Independence and McDermott. There was a strip mall there and it looked like if we parked away from the stores nobody would care. It was not very busy.

Image 1 shows our setup. Dan had his buddy pole up first then when the picture taken had his VHF/UHF Elk Antenna up. I had a VHF beam mounted on a 10 foot tripod on the back of my truck, with my VHF bicycle antenna on top.

Here is the Arbonet site. This is where we got the information about the balloon and the payloads.

There were 4 payloads and the plan was to drop payload 2,3 and 4 after the balloon reached a certain altitude.

Here is the data on which we were basing our setup.

Payload Details:

Payload 1

• 2M Voice Beacon: ID: K5ARB - 144.930MHz FM

• 2M APRS: ID: K5ARB-1. 144.390MHz

Payloads 2,3,4

• 2M CW Homing Beacon ID: K5ARB. Comprised of FM carrier with CW tone at 147.475MHz

• 2M APRS: K5ARB-2 144.390MHz

• 70CM / 2M FM Cross-Band Repeater: K5ARB - 445.800MHz UP, 145.560MHz Down

• 20M CW Homing Beacon ID: K5RWK - 14.058MHz

The flight profile we expected is shown in Image 2. Based on this profile, we expected to see payloads 2, 3, and 4 drop at about 80,000 feet,and payload 1 to go higher.

We were ready to go a little after 9:30 and could not hear anything. We tried to hear the voice beacon, the 2M CW beacon, the cross-band repeater, and the 20 Meter Homing beacon. We could not hear anything. We also tried to hear the 80 meter launch net, and could not get anything. By 10:45 Dan and I were talking about a valiant try, but no luck. We were trying to figure out what to do when I got a phone call from Doug Kilgore (KD5OUG) and Dan started hearing something on 80 meters. The balloon had just launched at 10:58 a.m. 88 minutes late!

Since I was not at the launch field I took the account of the launch from the ARBONET website.

ARBONET 3 lifted off at about 10:58 after a few holds, but the lift off was, as Doug-W5BL said, "Text book sweet"

Light winds and a few clouds were in the area and overall the weather was quite good for launch.

The payloads were given final checks and assembly just prior to liftoff, the payloads tethered together and staged in-line.

The fill team filled the balloon in the hangar and minutes later they were ready for release. Final button-up and system checks were made; several ham operators manned the balloon, the parachute and the 4 payloads getting ready for release.

The balloon was taken outside of the hangar and Tommy from Fort Worth supervised the release phase. Payloads 1-2 were taken aloft while the balloon was still tethered and soon the balloon was released.

Payloads 3 and 4 were then released as the balloon started ascending, with payload 4 including a small plastic bottle to serve as a weight for the bottom side of the 20 meter Richardson Wireless Club 20 meter beacon wire antenna.

Video on Payload 1 was faced downward to watch the payload action. It ran the entire flight, from liftoff to touchdown. Two other video cameras were also in the flight composition, but the videos have not been reviewed.

Video camera 1 was started prior to lift-off and in the video lift-off occurred 00:09:13 (hours:minutes:seconds) into the video. A very easy ascent is shown of the payloads rising through light clouds and into the clear sky just above.

Soon word was given that both APRS systems were not reporting altitude. Although we are sure altitude was configured, it appears there was some problem that kept it being reported properly.

APRS system K5ARB-1 soon quit reporting altogether, after only 27 or so packets received.

APRS system K5ARB-2 kept reporting for the next two hours. However, altitude data was never received, so altitude was approximated throughout the flight.

The flight was tracked on a heading of south by southeast and soon chase teams were en route for recovery. Simulations pin pointed an area near Shreveport, LA.

We started getting the 2M CW beacon almost immediately. But could not get the voice beacon. Soon we started hearing people scratchy on the cross-band repeater. And the repeater signal started sounding stronger.

Dan keyed the mike and made a contact! When he finished we realized his dual band beam was on the ground leaning against the car!

I tried it and also made a contact. The VHF beam was on the truck, but I had forgotten to hold the UHF beam. It was lying down facing east, as a result it had horizontal polarity. We heard a number of people from Paris, Sherman, Mesquite, and even Larry Essary (K5XG) in Lucas.

Throughout the flight, WB8ELK was tracking both the APRS system and later ground chase teams. Bill has over 300 flights to his credit and his experience and ability to predict a flight profile is a fine resource to have in the pocket when things go bad.

At 02:11:00 into the video, burst happens. The sound of the burst and shock can be seen and heard in the video. Descent is immediately marked by wind noise and the extremely rough ride down through the area of very thin air. Payload camera 1's camera mount is broken; either from the shock of burst or the tough ride experienced right after burst, but the video is still working well. The APRS system K5ARB-2 quits sending packets. The RWK CW beacon soon quits sending CW. The FM CW beacon is also no longer heard.

Since the parachute surface area does not change like the balloon's volume displacement, the initial descent is fast and furious. There is no air to act against the parachute to slow the payloads decent from the pull of gravity. High speeds are reached and the payloads can be seen flung about like a rag doll on the end of a whip.

At 2:15:13 into the video, a major snap happens throughout the tethered lines - not unlike many before it, but at this point the RWK CW beacon can't take the stress and departs the payloads. It can be seen falling away in about two blurred video frames only. Shortly after, the heavier air is encountered, the parachute becomes more effective and the payloads settle into a more sane descent to touchdown.

Nearer to ground, the payloads look like they will have little choice but to land in trees. The trees here are about 100' tall; the area is filled with swamp, and mosquitoes and perhaps a few hungry gators. At a few thousand feet, the road can be seen where Ham operators later convene at a gas station and natural gas wells can be seen all around.

Nearer to ground, the payloads look like they will have little choice but to land in trees. The trees here are about 100' tall; the area is filled with swamp, and mosquitoes and perhaps a few hungry gators. At a few thousand feet, the road can be seen where Ham operators later convene at a gas station and natural gas wells can be seen all around.

The payloads appear to be landing in the trees. At the last minute however, a gas well comes into sight and payload 3 touches down in the gas well clearing at 2:53:31 with payload 1 hitting the ground at 2:53:34. The chances of hitting such a nice spot were a million to 1 in Las Vegas. The area was perhaps 100 yards long by 50 yards wide.

Meanwhile, chase teams met up in Benton, LA to eat and talk about strategy to find the payloads. We soon depart on the same trek as indicated by Bill Brown, WB8ELK, who ran scenario on top of scenario in balloon flight profile software to help guide us to the spot of most probability. We headed to the area thought most probable and stopped to make plans, since we were very near a large lake. One chase team would head around the west side of the lake while the other would head around the east side and start searching in the area thought most likely best for success.

Upon reaching the east side of highway 157, Doug, W5BL received a phone call from K5AI, Ron Porter. Ron is a local resident of Bossier City, LA and was out listening for the payloads as well. Ron called Doug and told him he heard the FM Morse code beacon. Doug had me pull over and I called to David KC5UYR and he also pulled over. Upon pulling over, David and Tommy could also now hear the FM CW beacon, and just across the street there was Ron Porter. After assembling some radio direction finding gear and listening, it was decided to circle the area the best we could to pinpoint the location. Within a few minutes, Tommy noted an APRS packet was received with Lat and Long, so we knew within a few hundred feet where to look.

My crew and I took the long way around the block and met up with David and Tommy. Looking at the map, I felt the package was a bit more to the right of where we were looking and David agreed. He drove his truck down the road a bit and I intended to follow on foot jumping into the trees up the road a bit from where the others went in.

Soon I heard David KC5UYR call, "K5NOT, Michael, I found it!"

My crew, K5RAU, Hannah and Tyler ran up the gas well road that David drove down minutes before. I shouted into the brush where the others were that the payload was over here. There before us, in an OASIS of clearing among thousands of tall trees in the area, and among a swamp, were the payloads laid out as if dropped by a helicopter on purpose. In the middle of the clearing where the gas wells exist was payload 3 and further southwest laid payloads 2, 1 and the parachute, with what was left of the spaghetti looking mass that was once the balloon.

Minutes later the rest of the chase teams came into the area. We photographed and recovered the payloads. Having found this needle in a hay stack was simply amazing once again.

We searched in vain for the RWK payload, thinking it may have caught the trees on the way in, so we waded into the swamp and into the trees a while and have scratches and mosquito bites to reflect the futile effort. The insects in the area sounded like the sounders we use on the payloads. Ron, Doug and I made several circles thinking we heard the unit. After several ill attempts, I grabbed the younger ears of Tyler and he and I returned to the area I felt it was in and Tyler let me know I was just hearing bugs.

Knowing the time line and being able to possibly identify some of the topographic fingerprints of the land seen below the payloads when the RWK beacon whipped off the end of the string, there is a good chance we can approximate the location of the RWK payload.

Overall this flight was a great success. The teamwork and enthusiasm of all involved was sincerely impressive at the very least. Every aspect of the flight reflected people helping people to pull off a poor-man's space flight, and in the face of problems realized after burst, we still came out of the woods with a set of payloads in hand.

It was reported on Monday that the RWK module was found. I made a map, Image 3, that shows where the Balloon Launched (Red Marker), where the RWK module was found (Blue Marker) and where the balloon and the rest of the payloads were first found (Yellow Marker).

It was interesting to see a satellite view of the landing zone. Image 4 shows that the balloon and the payloads could have landed in a very wooded area but by chance landed in a clearing for a gas well.

Dan and I think we were the farthest west group to talk on the cross-band repeater. We have no confirmation of this just what we heard on the repeater.

Now that we know it does not take any special equipment to reach Plano (Larry was in the car in his driveway.) We will have to decide what we want to do next year. Maybe we will go farther west to go for longest distance. Maybe we will setup in a more public place. We have a year to decide.

Kipton Moravec
AE5IB