I have updated our home page to make it easier to navigate our site. If you’re a follower and only seeing this blog, please take a look at our home page https://nibbb.org/ comments welcome.

We’re very fortunate to have a group of followers that are able to continue to receive our signal far from their location.

Pico Balloon AA6DY, launched on September 3rd 2022, woke up at 03:52 UTC, 10:52 pm CDT at Grid RK04HR just north of the Federated States of Micronesia. AA6DY altitude is 14,310 meters 46,937 feet.

Our first station received was from KFS Half Moon Bay, California 7,806 Km or 4,850 miles from our balloon. KFS is a High Frequency Receiver, to read about them please go to KFS Half Moon Bay We also heard from Hisami, 7L4IOU, 3,161 Km away and a station in Utah KA7OEI, 8,679 Km from our balloon.

According to our NOAA Hysplit model below, AA6DY will be travelling east today, then heading southeast tomorrow at about 40 mph. Although the GPS chip onboard our tracker is always receiving information, it’s not until we’re heard from an Amateur Radio Station that we’re able to receive our location and altitude. We hope our followers can point their antennas north of the Marshall Islands. We spent 8 days around the Marshall islands travelling at 2-8 mph on our 8th launch, with our Pico Balloon KD9ORR. Back then we were flying at 24,000 feet. Now we’re at 47,000 feet and looking for a faster Jetstream.

Pico Balloon K9YO launched on October 10th, 2022 woke at 13:08 UTC, 8:08 am CDT at Grid HO41gi over the North Atlantic Ocean between Greenland and Iceland. K9YO altitude is 12,300 meters, 40,344 feet.

K9YO is moving in a very fast Jetstream east at about 120 mph. Below is the NOAA Hyplit model for direction over the next 48 hours. Only look at the upper box for direction, we found the change in altitude during flight is not correct.

Our Links to Locate and Track are updated for both balloons. K9YO is still flying and AA6DY will wakeup when heard hopefully in about 5 hours.

For current tracking information with Jetstream, direction and tracking other balloons around the world please click Locate and Track