AdultKing

In the case of the balloon I posted about it hit a weather front over the Indian Ocean and went down.

When the balloons encounter large weather systems the rapidly changing air pressure and temperature can cause the balloon to fail. In normal weather conditions, even if they change, the balloon can slowly expand, deflate in accordance with the conditions, but sudden changes can be catastrophic to the integrity of the balloon.

It's not my balloon, I don't launch them another guy in Melbourne does that.

The balloon itself is just a normal silver party balloon you buy at any party shop or department store.

However the transmitter is a 25 milliwatt transmitter which is powered by a solar charged battery. Frequencies vary. The more recent ones transmit on 10.1387Mhz and 14.095Mhz (30 metre and 20 metre HF radio bands). The power output is less than a quarter of most home wireless routers.

The transmitter is connected to devices like a GPS receiver and other tiny payloads for collecting information about the balloon. It transmits data using a radio mode called JT9 which is specifically designed for low power situations. You can decode JT9 with various applications that run on your computer and you receive the data from your radio through the computer's sound card.

The radio I use to receive the signals is an IC-7600 by Icom, it's an all mode HF transceiver with inbuilt DSP and a high resolution display which can display a signal waterfall helping you discern weak signals and tune in to them. It's the large radio on the bottom with the big display (to the left of the laptop).



Cube Sats are going up all the time, they are also fun to track and you can use them as repeaters to talk to people all over the world while one is passing over you. However they use VHF and UHF frequencies as opposed to the balloons which use HF (commonly known as short wave).