February 3rd 2022, More about Balloons and updates to our Website

February 3, 2023February 17, 2023 / Cary Willis, KD9ITO / 1 Comment

I suppose this is a good time to talk more about balloons, our hobby of Pico Balloons and other balloons.

As licensed Amateur Radio operators, we follow regulations for launching a balloon. Here in the United States we follow the Code of Federal Regulations 14 CFR Part 101 This information is found our our Technical Page

Our Pico Balloons are 32 inch diameter with a 100 inch circumference, pre-stretched prior to launch and becomes full at highest cruising altitude (Between 32,000 feet and 50,000 feet depending on the package weight)

Our Trackers, solar panel, and antenna packages are lighter than a small bird. Our balloons are filled using a gram scale filled at less than a cubic foot of gas, enough to lift the package +- 8 grams of gas, and are exempt from 14 CFR 101

Below are excerpts from 14 CFR 101

This part prescribes rules governing the operation in the United States, of the following:

(1) Except as provided for in § 101.7, any balloon that is moored to the surface of the earth or an object thereon and that has a diameter of more than 6 feet or a gas capacity of more than 115 cubic feet.
(2) Except as provided for in § 101.7, any kite that weighs more than 5 pounds and is intended to be flown at the end of a rope or cable.

And Part 4

Except as provided for in § 101.7, any unmanned free balloon that –

(i) Carries a payload package that weighs more than four pounds and has a weight/size ratio of more than three ounces per square inch on any surface of the package, determined by dividing the total weight in ounces of the payload package by the area in square inches of its smallest surface;
(ii) Carries a payload package that weighs more than six pounds;
(iii) Carries a payload, of two or more packages, that weighs more than 12 pounds; or
(iv) Uses a rope or other device for suspension of the payload that requires an impact force of more than 50 pounds to separate the suspended payload from the balloon.

§ 101.17 Lighting and marking requirements.

(a) No person may operate a moored balloon or kite, between sunset and sunrise unless the balloon or kite, and its mooring lines, are lighted so as to give a visual warning equal to that required for obstructions to air navigation in the FAA publication “Obstruction Marking and Lighting”.

(b) No person may operate a moored balloon or kite between sunrise and sunset unless its mooring lines have colored pennants or streamers attached at not more than 50 foot intervals beginning at 150 feet above the surface of the earth and visible for at least one mile.

(Sec. 6(c), Department of Transportation Act (49 U.S.C. 1655(c)))

[Doc. No. 1580, 28 FR 6722, June 29, 1963, as amended by Amdt. 101-4, 39 FR 22252, June 21, 1974]

§ 101.19 Rapid deflation device.

No person may operate a moored balloon unless it has a device that will automatically and rapidly deflate the balloon if it escapes from its moorings. If the device does not function properly, the operator shall immediately notify the nearest ATC facility of the location and time of the escape and the estimated flight path of the balloon.

I’ve previously wrote about our Team Member, John Walsh, W9BLN who is a member of the Adler Planetarium Far Horizons Project. John volunteers with the GoNet Project that monitors Light Pollution in the Chicago area. They launch weather balloons that get as big as a house at maximum altitude. These balloons carry a 10 lb payload with cameras and other equipment costing thousands of dollars. These High Altitude Balloons with expensive payloads must be recovered. Far Horizons has a launch committee and a recovery committee. I’ve followed a past flight on APRS that usually lasts 5 hours. The Far Horizons group flys a flight plan with the FAA.

The Code of Federal Regulations is a good read, and I hope you follow our link above.

On our Locate and Track page we have several links to follow the worldwide Amateur Radio Pico Balloons in flight that are registered through APRS. One of the links is Amateur Sondehub

From Amateur Sondehub January 31st 2023 showing K9YO and KD9UQB with the group

We are a small group of Pico Balloon enthusiasts.

Sondehub also tracks other balloons flying around the world at Sondehub.org

These are very crowded skies.

Clicking on the Sondehub links above and scrolling out will show all the registered balloons flying around the world.

New from the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade

From the start of our program in June of 2021, besides having fun, our goal was to teach others how to build and launch Pico Balloons. This is a continued work in progress.

Our Team Member, Jim Janiak, KD9UQB has designed and started to teach our team members how to build our solar panel packages. Jim has updated our website on the solar panel builds.

When you visit our main page https://nibbb.org/ you’ll read about the introduction to our program and our members. The heading on each page show the links for more information.

Two recently added links are information on how to build our Low Sun Angle – High Power solar array with Bill of Materials and the Standard Array with Bill of Materials. The Low Sun Angle High Power array was designed and built by Jim for the Antarctica launch on November 24th 2022, now on the 71st day of flight and getting ready for the 6th circumnavigation.

Our Pico Balloon K9YO after missing in action for 30 days, made the 6th circumnaviation on January 31st 2023, and is expected over Finland around February 4th.

For updated information on our balloons in flight, please visit our Locate and Track page. For posts starting with the most recent please visit our Blog page.

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions. I can be reached through my QRZ page or the Contact Us link on our website.

73, Cary KD9ITO

October 21st 2022, K9YO and AA6DY are Awake

October 21, 2022October 22, 2022 / Cary Willis, KD9ITO / Leave a comment

I often mention how fortunate we are to have our NIBBB Team involved in making us so successful. John Walsh, W9BLN is one of our Technical Advisors, also involved with the Adler Planetarium’s High Altitude Balloon Far Horizon’s Project and GoNet Project studying Light Pollution. John provides us among other things the “know how”, to use the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) Hysplit models to track our balloons. With John’s help we are now tracking both our balloons with the NOAA projected trajectory over 84 hours.

You can find NOAA, Ventusky for wind speed, APRS for each Balloon, and Sondehub links for all Pico Balloons around the world at our Locate and Track page. We are also showing maps of our projected “Best Guess” wakeup location for October 25th for both balloons. These maps will be updated every day while we’re flying on our Locate and Track page.

We finally have both balloons, K9YO and AA6DY awake and doing well. AA6DY woke at 14:52 UTC at Grid DJ66BC west of Bogota, Columbia, South America flying at 14,480 meters, 47,494 feet.

K9YO woke at 17:28 UTC at Grid DO67AX, Northwest Saskatchewan Territories of Canada flying at 12,050 meters, 39,524 feet.

K9YO was awake for an hour yesterday October 20th, at Grid CP62 over the Northwest Territories, Canada shown on the upper left corner of the map below.

For those getting our posts for the first time, please visit our home page for a slide show of our balloon launch AA6DY, on September 3rd 2022 and our solar panel build session on September 10th 2022 at https://nibbb.org/

Below is the image from Sondehub which tracks Amateur Radio Balloons around the world. K9YO-15 is over Canada and AA6DY-15 is approaching Mexico. We use the -15 designation to track our balloons on APRS and Sondehub. We may use a different designation for different flights so please check our Locate and Track page for future launches.

I’ll update our Locate and Track page for any changes to the projected path of our balloons. You can click on APRS to track our balloons in flight. 73, Cary KD9ITO

June 24th W9BLN and KB9LM end of day report

June 24, 2022June 25, 2022 / Cary Willis, KD9ITO / Leave a comment

We are now 5 days and 10 hours into our flight.

Before I get into our report, I’d like to introduce one of our members of the NIBBB. One of the balloons we’re flying is W9BLN, which is John Walsh’s callsign, who is a member of our Technical Team. John, who recently upgraded to General, changed his callsign from KD9THB to W9BLN for Balloon. I met John at his VE session when he received his Techncian license and told me of a project he was involved in. John is also volunteering with the Adler Planetarium’s Far Horizons GoNet Project in Chicago, IL.

That evening after his exam I followed the Far Horizons High Altitude Balloon Launched from Lebanon Indiana to fly over Indianapolis Indiana looking at Light Pollution from 60,000 feet. I followed their launch till I had to go to sleep to get to our 2nd Launch on October 2nd 2021 at Central School in Glencoe IL, where John was able to join us. Far Horizons plans far ahead to make sure the Jetstream goes where the balloon needs to go, to be able to recover the payload with thousands of dollars of equipment and of course the pictures of the flight.

We are very excited to finally be able to fly W9BLN representing two balloon projects, Far Horizons and us. please click on this link to learn more about Far Horizons

Now to our report

We receive our balloons’ location in part from the Amateur Radio stations around the world that are able to receive our signal. KB9LM has stayed at the same 7,000 square mile Grid DL79 since yesterday. KB9LM was last heard at 21:52 UTC 3:52pm CDT from a station in West Jordan Utah, about 1800 Km from the DL79 Grid. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s wake up in hope to get another Grid location to determine the balloons direction.

W9BLN last transmitted at 23:58 UTC 6:58 pm CDT at Grid EL47JT

After circling over the Gulf of Mexico, we were looking for W9BLN to find some direction and pick up some speed. Looks like we did just that. We’re now heading north at between 25Km and 30Km an hour. We’re using different programs to track and map out our balloon. W9BLN is flying the new U4B from QRP-Labs. They have their own tracking program which shows the locations 6 character Gridsquare which gives us a 15 square mile grid, the altitude in meters, speed in knots and battery in voltage. The battery in voltage is so important telling us how well our solar panel package is doing. One of the stations that has been regulary receiving W9BLN is VK4CT around 14,000 Km away in Australia, helps having an antenna 30,000 feet up.

W9BLN flying at 29,000 feet and 14 knots heading north

I’ve updated the Ventusky Jetstream link for tomorrow at 7am at 29,000 feet.

Sometime after I wakeup and before I head to Field Day, I’ll update our Balloons.

Till tomorrow, 73, Cary