7L4IOU

October 10th 2022, Projected Wakeup for 22:00 UTC today.

/ kd9ito / Leave a comment

We left you yesterday without enough information to accurately predict where we may wakeup today. We received a couple of more spots from Seto, JA5NVN and Hisami 7L4IOU which gave us a final Grid at QL62JK and altitude of 14,420 meters.

We hope that our followers in Japan will continue to point their antennas in our direction to help us find our way.

Having our last location and altitude, we were able to produce a NOAA model for 48 hours to project a possible direction as seen below. Starting with the star at the bottom right hand corner and following the path to the upper left hand corner.

The way we find our projected wakeup is to follow the NOAA Model starting with a star and and counting the larger triangles and small triangles leading to the projected wakeup, then go back to the NOAA path and count the same start and triangles. Use the longitude and latitude and fill in the Gridmapper on our Links to Locate and Track tab.

Our first projected wakeup is around 21:00 UTC at Grid QL35MA

Projected wakeup QL35MA, October 10th 2022, 21:00 UTC

Follow the same for the October 11th wakeup which is near the top left hand corner of the NOAA trajectory path for our projected wakeup at 21:00 UTC, Grid at QM10LA

Projected wakeup Grid QM10LA, on October 11th, 2022, 21:00 UTC

I’ll start looking for our balloon around 21:00 UTC this evening 5:00 pm CDT our time.

October 9th 2022, 21:42 UTC, Grid QL61id

/ kd9ito / 1 Comment

AA6DY took a while to get both packets. We received our first packet QL60 at 21:42 UTC, 4:42 pm CDT from Hisami, 7L4IOU. We received our 2nd packet at 23:44 UTC also from Hisami, 7L4IOU giving us the Grid QL61id and altitude of 14,300 meters, 46,904 feet.

Grid QL61id, Altitude 46,904 feet

We’re not sure of our direction getting conflicting NOAA models. The one below is for Grid QL61jf, received on October 10th 2022, 00:24 UTC at 14,360 meters, 47,100 feet.

We should have about 5 hours more of sunlight, I’ll update the NOAA model tomorrow if we receive any new spots. Currently all our spots are from Hisami 7L4IOU. Thank you Hisami for finding us.

October 7th 2022, 21:42 UTC Grid QL69OJ,

/ kd9ito / Leave a comment

AA6DY woke at 21:42 UTC, 4:42 pm CDT at Grid QL69OJ. We received both the 1st and 2nd packets from Hisami, 7L4IOU one of our newest NIBBB followers. Having received both packets, we have our altitude of 14,300 meters, 46,904 feet. We are now on our 34th day and 8th hour of flight.

Thank you Hisami, for pointing your antenna in our direction.

Our general direction will be south over the next 48 hours as seen below on the NOAA Hysplit Model. As it appears we’ll be staying here a little bit longer, we’re just happy to be flying.

We’re still waiting for all our links to update, Ventusky has been updated for our Jetstream

October 3rd 2022, Day 31, 01:24 UTC, North of Chengde, China

/ kd9ito / 1 Comment

This is truly amazing, we woke up far from where I thought we would be. We woke at 01:24 UTC, 8:42 pm CDT, northeast of Beijing China at Grid ON81XE. We received both our 1st and 2nd packets and now have our altitude at 13,960 meters, 45,789 feet.

Grid ON81XE North of Chengde China

While I started tracking our balloon this evening, I received an email from one of our new followers, Hisami 7L4IOU from Japan, who first saw spotted our balloon on our first time around the world. Hisami, emailed me to tell me he received our WSPR signal at 01:42 zulu and offered his congratulations on our smooth flight.

Now that we received 2 packets I was able to create a NOAA Hysplit model for 48 hours. We look forward to flying over Japan within a day or so.

We’re still a little slow to get all our data. From what I see, we’re in a Jetstream traveling 145 mph Jetstream from Beijing

I’ll be updating our links to locate and track tab as the information becomes available.