May 3 RWK Balloon Launch Status Update

By Chip Coker KD4C

We’re watching the weather and air currents very closely – and crossing our fingers – and it looks like we should be “on” for our planned High Altitude Balloon Launch this Saturday, May 3rd. We will make the final decision on Thursday, so “Stay Tuned to this message”!

As a reminder, we would love to have you participate, either at the launch site, as part of a tracking team, or from your shack, where you can watch the balloon progress, receive the various payloads, and potentially earn the “Worked All Payloads” award/QSL!

We also posted instructions on How To Program Your DMR Radio To Communicate via the Single-Frequency Repeater. We’ve flown this payload several times and the coverage is amazing – from Oklahoma to Houston. You should see how far you can talk while the balloon is in the air!

We will have some final instructions regarding the launch once we make the call. If we are a “go” for Saturday, the launch will be in Aubrey TX (about 30 min NW or Richardson) at 9am. We hope to see you there, or at least on the air.

So get started on those tracking stations, start working on your ground stations, and stay tuned!

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