3rd Launch October 23rd

/ kd9ito

We launched 2 balloons today, Bob KD9RDU (Noah’s Dad) and me, Cary KD9ITO. I failed to mention that my callsign KD9ITO was the first launch on September 25th, never transmitted but the balloon went somewhere over Lake Michigan. Here was my 2nd attempt at greatness. But first was Bob KD9RDU. Bob who has been a member of our team from the beginning had just passed his General exam and was honored with a balloon.

Michael AA6DY making the final programming touches, making sure we’re getting a signal and using those great knot tying skills he learned in his earlier years. We’re getting ready for launch.
Looking for a larger field, we launched at Glenbrook North High School with our host Jason KD9CFM the advisor for that Ham club. Pictured here is Bob KD9RDU.
Here we are preparing for a launch, it really takes a village to make these successful
Just after this launch, we noticed the planes preparing to land at the nearby airfield
While Bob KD9RDU has flown our longest flight, the balloon had started losing altitude about an hour before and with storms coming in and flying close to the White House, we weren’t sure if it was altitude, storms or the Secret Service that brought our balloon down. Anyway, with our 3rd Launch we were on a streak

Cary KD9ITO launched a half hour after Bob but didn’t fair as well, losing steam in Indiana, trying to figure out how we can go from 25,000 feet to lost in a minute, Hmmm.

From the track above you can see we didn’t start seeing the first spot till we were on the other side of Lake Michigan, 90 minutes after launch. This kept us biting our nails, was this a successful launch or another failure? This seemed to be a common theme, 90 minutes from launch to get a reading.

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