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May 27th 2024 Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade update

/ Cary Willis, KD9ITO

We started the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade on June 9th 2021

Without any previous knowledge of this project. We spent the summer researching, and began launching Pico Balloons, 3 months later.

We will be celebrating our 3rd Anniversary in a couple of weeks on June 9th 2024.  In our 3 years we launched over 35 Pico balloons.

In our early months we were launching on a regular basis, sometimes two or three times a month.  With some successes along the way.   We had our 1st long flight in December of 2021, of Pico Balloon KD9ORR that flew 19 days, crossing the International Date Line twice in the same day.  Once going east, dropping out of the Jetstream and then going back west and spending 8 days around the Marshall Islands.  It was fun watching and reporting on that balloon.  We started our website during the flight of KD9ORR.  Click here to follow our 8th launch of Pico Balloon KD9ORR

We had three flights in 2022 that made multiple circumnavigations. Pico Balloon AA6DY launched in September, for 83 days of flight and three times around the world, Pico Balloon K9YO launched in October for 123 days of flight and seven times around the world and Pico Balloon KD9UQB launched from Antarctica in November for 100 days of flight and seven times around the world.  

Our Antarctica launch was conducted by Todd McKinney, KN4TPG a student with the University of Alabama in Huntsville.  Our other partner on this launch was Tom Medlin, W5KUB who we continue to consult with on our launches.

We launched two Pico Balloons on April 13th 2024 for Calvin Knowles KD9WNU and his Mom Janet Knowles KD9WVO.  Below is our group who participated in this launch. The slideshow of our launch is on our home page https://nibbb.org/

Both balloons stayed pretty close to each other for their flight, but we lost Calvin’s balloon over Ukraine after 5 days of flight.  We believe it was a weather that brought the balloon down.  Calvin likes to tell his friends that it was shot down.  

Janet’s Balloon KD9WVO-11 has been doing very well, now over 43 days of flight and preparing for its 3rd circumnavigation very soon.

Since our last launch on April 13th 2024, we also lost communication with Pico Balloon NE9JJ-2 that was carrying a weather sensor built by Todd McKinney, KN4TPG with the University of Alabama in Huntsville.  NE9JJ transmitted for 44 days, and 4 times around the world gathering weather data that Todd found very useful.  NE9JJ is Jim Janiak who’s callsign was KD9UQB for the Antarctica launch and some others.

Although I haven’t written here in over a month, you can follow our balloons in flight which are updated daily at our Locate and Track page at this link https://nibbb.org/links-to-locate-and-track/ 

Our website header shows our balloons sharing the skies with other Pico Balloons flying around the world. It’s a big world and a small part of the hobby of Amateur Radio.  

Tracking worldwide Pico Balloons is provided by Sondehub which is the 1st link on our Locate and Track page.

All the pictures from our last launch and group projects have been moved to our home page https://nibbb.org/  Our home page also has group pictures of our NIBBB members through the years, and slideshows of our launches and build projects that I hope you’ll visit and share with others.

We have close to 190 followers here at the NIBBB that receive emails when posts are published.  Our most recent followers are from Australia, the United Kingdom and Germany. 

We look to our worldwide group of Amateur Radio operators, to help track our balloons, receiving our packets and report the data.  If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t know where we were, wouldn’t receive important data of our location, and altitude, additional data such as temperature, humidity and pressure at altitude, and how our trackers are behaving during the flight. 

Our followers can point their antennas where we’re projected to be, by going to our Locate and Track page for our reported location and the forward trajectory NOAA Hysplit Model, as shown below for Pico Balloon KD9WVO. NOAA provides us with an 84 hour projected trajectory that we update daily.

I’d like to also thank our members of the NIBBB for their dedication, and time.  

We’re looking forward to our launches in June for Gordie Mulley KD9TVR and Kelsi Mulley KE9LSI, who’ve been waiting a long time for their launch.  Mikaela Streicher, KD9VIW will be launching sometime after June.

Calvin Knowles KD9WNU and Gordie Mulley KD9TVR are finishing the 7th grade in a week or two.  Kelsi Mulley KE9LSI just completed her junior year in high school.  Mikaela Streicher KD9VIW just finished her freshman year in college. Elizabeth Ziemer KD9ORR with our original group just finished her junior year in college.  Henry Fiely KD9SRZ from our original group is finishing his freshman year in high school and Noah Berg, KD9RDT from our original group is finishing his sophomore year in high school.  Congratulations to our younger members of the NIBBB.

We’ll be sharing information very soon on our new tracker which we hope to start launching in July. For now, the group is working on a development board testing the chips and software.

Thank you to everyone around the world who have shared our project with us.

73,  Cary  KD9ITO

The Stretchinator – Hasta La Vista, Balloon

/ Janet Knowles / 2 Comments

This past Sunday the group gathered at the home of the industrious (and illustrious) Stewart Spies, KB9LM to do some brainstorming, run some tests, and most importantly to enjoy some delicious grub together.  Oh, and gadgets.  Always new and fun gadgets!

Stage 1: Behold! The Stretchinator Demo

We started the session with Stewart demonstrating The Stretchinator™, his aptly named and turns out, reliably accurate, invention for stretching balloons.

Stewart KB9LM explaining the inner workings of his invention. The gravitational acceleration sensor is attached to the arm as indicated in this image.

The Stretchinator is an assemblage of custom software, hardware and physical infrastructure all built and devised by Stewart Spies, KB9LM. The frame is primarily constructed with PVC pipe and wood. It acts in part as a frame to keep the balloon stable and largely immobile, but also serves as a mount for the gravitational acceleration sensor. This sensor arm, which allows for pitch rotation, is attached to one of the PVC pipes that stands perpendicular to the ground. Simply put, when the arm is parallel to the ground, the sensor’s gravitational acceleration reading will equal 0.

An Arduino controls the input of the hardware with an aquarium pump, the trusty inflator. As the balloon is filled with air, the sensor arm will slowly rotate upwards. When gravitational acceleration reaches zero, the Arduino will then shut the aquarium pump off and no further inflation can occur.

Left to right: Jim Janiak NE9JJ, Cary Willis KD9ITO, Cal Knowles KD9WNU, Ken Daniel K9YO, Stewart Spies KB9LM, Kelsi Mulley KE9LSI, Gordie Mulley KD9TVR, and Doug Mulley KD9TPM (not pictured Janet Knowles KD9WVO)

Stage 2: OMNOMNOM

With The Stretchinator doing its stretchinating best, we took a break to feast on some yummy subs and sides courtesy of Cary and homemade guac by Stewart. We finished off with a few plates of homemade and store bought cookies that somehow traversed to the end of the table where our younger NIBBBers were sitting. Hmmmmm… anyways, back to stretching!

Stage 1.5: Behold! The Stretchinator Demo… CONTINUES!!

Stewart uses a laser range finder to confirm The Stretchinator’s calculation of the diameter of the balloon, which in this case should be just about 32 inches. The transparent Yokohama balloons are at an advantage over the mylar SAG balloons in this sense, as the LRF can cast a laser from through the Yokohama to check The Stretchinator’s accuracy.

The results:

LRF : 31.875 inches
Diameter: 31.83 inches
Circumference: 99.996 inches

Say whaaaaaaat!? Nice work Stewart! Fortunately we were able to spare a few moments to congratulate Stewart on the success of The Stretchinator.

-4.75 m/s2
0.01 m/s2
Before and after. Note the gravitation acceleration went from -4.75 to 0.01 before the pump shut off. The fully inflated balloon was more spherical, rather than a sphere, like a planet. Note that the sensor arm at the top of the image has raised to be roughly parallel to the ground.

Stage 3: Testing makes Besting

The third item on our agenda, after The Stretchinator Demo and the all-important Eating of Cookies, was to test out sealing mechanisms for the balloons. For this step we used an Impulse Heat Sealer that, while purchased new, resembled a giant office stapler from the 50s. Typically, used to seal polyethylene and polypropylene bags, we had more diabolical plans for it: to try to achieve a secure seal at our balloons’ inflation points.

The SAG balloons and Yokohama valved balloons are self-sealing, meaning that when at full altitude, they will automatically seal themselves. Because we launch the pre-stretched balloons, partially inflated, below full altitude, sealing them before they go up is mission critical to ensure no gas escapes. This is where the heat sealer comes in.

Gordie, practicing with the sealer by making tiny and adorable plastic bags.

Our objective was to test if the sealer could adequately seal the balloons. If the heat sealer is set at too high a temperature, the seal could destroy the material and create a hole. If the sealer is set too low, then a seal cannot be made. We were trying to determine what the goldilocks zone was, and if one was even in existence.

We started off by testing sealing balloon material alone using scraps cut from each type of balloon. The sealer made quick work of both mylar and polyethylene. Then we tried to seal the actual balloon’s valves. The SAG balloons have a problematic paint lining on the interior on the valve, which we determined was unsealable. A few potential solutions were thrown around, such as removing the paint with acetone, aka nail polish remover, or just leaving them unsealed, as Stewart pointed out that those balloons had performed quite well. After filling the balloons and before launch, we had been placing a small piece of either Kapton or 3M Shipping tape over the valve to prevent the gas from leaking. The Yokohama requires a nylon washer at the end of the valve opening held by tape to secure the tracker solar panel package.

Pesky valve

Deflating doesn’t have to be bad

Somewhere during the testing, Ken had to leave so he and Stewart deflated the pre-stretched and ready-for-launch SAG balloon (thank you, The Stretchinator!). Using a Dyson hand vacuum and a weak seal with tubing inserted into the valve, Stewart literally vacuumed the air out of the balloon so it could be safely transported to Ken’s home. The process had a watching-the-paint-dry quality.

We all wish this was how long it actually took to deflate.

Wrapping up

With a few minutes left before everyone needed to leave, Jim revealed the new solar panel that he is developing. He also unveiled the new weather sensor package developed by Todd McKinney KN4TPG from the University of Alabama in Huntsville https://www.picoballoonarchive.org/home. We’ll post more on the weather sensor in a future post, so Stay Tuned!

Jim Janiak, NE9JJ new solar panel with a green mock-up of Ken Daniel, K9YO tracker (left). Todd McKinney, KN4TPG’s weather sensor package (right).

Cary sent each of us home with new and very attractive rose gold-colored mylar SAG orb balloons for us to practice on so we didn’t have to leave empty-handed.

For more information – please visit us at NIBBB.org!

Until next time – happy Pico-ing!

73,
Janet KD9WVO & Cal KD9WNU

December 23rd 2022, Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade Update

/ Cary Willis, KD9ITO / 1 Comment

We are waiting to hear from our Pico Balloons K9YO and KD9UQB. K9YO was last heard on December 20th over Russia after missing for 5 days. We believe K9YO had traveled north away from sunlight. We’re looking forward to K9YO coming back into the sun and around for the 5th Circumnavigation.

Pico Balloon KD9UQB which was launched on November 24th from Antarctica has circumnavigated twice and is now believed to be circling the South Pole at 5 miles per hour. It may be another week before KD9UQB finds a faster moving wind and direction east.

The NIBBB met last Saturday for our occassional breakfast meeting. Jim, KD9UQB shared the two solar panel packages he built based on the design for the Antarctica launch. During this show and tell, Jim also shared another solar panel design that looks like a 6 panel pyramid or spaceship that would catch more sunlight for the winter months. Jim KD9UQB and John W9BLN will be testing these panels.

We also discussed whether we needed to seal the balloon valve with glue. All the balloons we use have an internal valve that closes once the balloon is at full volume. Full volume occurs when we pre-stretch the balloon or when it reaches its steady high altitude. We have also experienced a loss of Hydrogen from the time the balloon is filled and sealed till it’s launched, usually the next morning. The delay in launching was needed to allow for the glue to dry.

Michael Seedman, AA6DY and Stewart Spies, KB9LM, earlier tested the effectiveness of all glues, and different tapes at -67 degrees Fahrenheit using a Laboratory Oven at MHub in Chicago.

At our meeting, we went on to discuss if a condiment such as mayonnaise or mustard would be as effective as glue.

Listening intently on the science of sealing and the discussion were the Mulley Family, Doug, KD9TPM, Kelsi, KE9LSI, Gordie, KD9TVR, and Kyli. John Walsh, W9BLN, Jim Janiak, KD9UQB, Michael Seedman, AA6DY, Stewart Spies KB9LM, and Cary Willis, KD9ITO.

A future experiment we may be testing through actual flights, and answering the question, Which is better? glue, no glue, mustard/mayonnainse with and without Kapton tape and/or heat sealed.

As we work through these various questions, and test our new trackers we are getting ready to launch our next Pico Balloons early in the new year.

Below are pictured with their Dad Doug Mulley KD9TPM, two of our younger members, Gordie KD9TVR and Kelsi KE9LSI, brother and sister who received their General license together last summer in preparation for this upcoming launch.

  • Kelsi Mulley KE9LSI, Doug Mulley KD9TPM and Gordie Mulley KD9TVR testing the voltage of our new solar panel package
  • Kelsi Mulley KE9LSI and her brother Gordie Mulley KD9TVR with their new General license

We mentioned that one of our followers, Hisami 7L4IOU had wrote an article for CQ Magazine Japan that was published in the November 2022 issue. I asked some friends of mine, Mina and Kyogi Nakano to translate this article.

Below, from Hisami, 7L4IOU

On 9/3, high altitude balloon AA6DY was released in Illinois. By 9/14, it reached Japan and by 10/4 it has circled around Japan for the second time. This Balloon is managed by the group called “Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade” and this was their 24th launch to date.

The balloon is powered by a tiny and ultra light solar panels, GPS, One Chip Microcomputer Si5351A Clock Oscillation IC.

14.0956 MHz WSPR transmitter is attached to a party balloon and it continues to fly while the transmitter is exposed to the sunlight.

Since it is a good “On The Job” skill training for electronic circuit, programming, gas and pressure management, radiowave propagation and upper air charts

the group has gained wide popularity especially among young people.

By the way, the group blog and email conversations often mention the phrase “Yokohama Balloon.”

We were curious so when we asked, the group replied by saying the balloons manufactured by Yokohama Balloon Co. are highly regarded by the balloon enthusiasts.

We are very honored to learn about the Japanese toy makers’ meticulous effort being recognized. At the same time, we are also frustrated and very envious of the American balloon enthusiasts because in order for Japanese people to launch such a project, we must acquire licensing and legal system clearance! Sigh! 

We wish to thank Hisami and all our followers of the NIBBB.

We have since lost Pico Balloon AA6DY, last heard on November 24th 2022, after circling the world three times. Pico Balloon AA6DY had traveled for 82 days, spending most of the flight time around the Pacific Ocean. Reminiscing back in time, below is from our Blog dated October 3rd 2022.

October 3rd 2022, Day 32, 22:32 UTC, East of Yokohama, Japan, North Pacific Ocean

It’s Deja Vu all over again. AA6DY woke at 22:32 UTC, 5:32 pm CDT at Grid QM14MJ just east of Yokohama, Japan over the North Pacific Ocean. Our altitude is 14,420 meters, 47,298 feet.

QM14MJ, east of Yokohama Japan

The Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has made all this possible. Wishing you and your families, Happy Holidays and a prosperous New Year.

We will continue to update our Locate and Track page throughout our flights.

73, Cary KD9ITO

September 1st 2022, Artemis and NIBBB, what we have in common

/ Cary Willis, KD9ITO / Leave a comment

As we reported in our last post, we were ready to launch two balloons last Saturday, August 27th. After completing the Board and getting ready for launch, Michael started testing the tracker and discovered it wasn’t working properly. The night before, we discovered our tracker was only transmitting one packet. We need both packets sent two minutes apart to receive the 6 Grid Maidenhead location, altitude and other data. Not having all the data we needed for a successful launch, we decided to scrub the launch until we could find the trouble.

On our last post we had shown our 3rd party manufactured tracker minus a few chips. Because of the chip shortage, it’s necessary for us to add some our own sourced chips. After spending time looking at the software as a possible issue, we suspected the problem to be a hardware issue. One of the substituted chips was the MS5351 Clock Generator. On our previous trackers, we were using the Skyworks Si5351, however, due to supply chain issues, we ordered the MS5351, thinking it was a plug-in replacement for the Skyworks chip. We found that the MS5351’s didn’t always work. After finding a board that failed consistently, we removed the MS5351 and replaced it with an original Skyworks chip, we retested, and we’re now back in business. We now have two working trackers for our next launch. We also ordered the Skyworks Si5351A-B-GT chips from Digikey to make sure our future trackers will work properly.

We also discovered during this down period, that the two Yokohama balloons that were prepared for last Saturday, were found to be leaking a small amount of gas – about 1g of lift per day. We were planning on using these pre-stretched and filled with the proper free lift gas for this Saturday’s launch. I suppose it was pure luck to discover the balloons had a small leak which would have lead to a failed launch, if we hadn’t scrubbed the launch.

After we discovered these failed balloons, Michael AA6DY and Stewart KB9LM of our Technical team had conference calls with Ken Daniel K9YO and with Tom Medlin W5KUB on our different balloons. Ken has been successful flying the SAG balloons and Tom, the Yokohama’s. While Stewart was able to get the process of pre-stretching and sealing from Ken, Tom shared that the failure rate of a Yokohama balloon was about 70%. While we’re not sure if that’s a failure from launch or cutting short the journey, Tom’s flight 112 has just circumnavigated the world and is currently flying on day 82 with a Yokohama balloon over Canada heading to the north pole.

We have several groups working together to prepare for a launch. After the Balloons, Tracker, Solar Panels and Antenna package are prepared, the last step before launch is to look at the weather and the Jetstream. It is now up to our Meteorological committee to determine whether we are good to go, which we now have.

Our Meteorological committee of Kelsi Mulley KE9LSI (our new General) and her Dad Doug Mulley KD9TPM are providing daily weather reports leading up to the launch. NOAA (National Oceanic and Athmospheric Administration) provides all our models from balloon location for all weather and trajectory. NOAA gives us updates on Hurricanes and Cyclones which may impact our launch as well as a Hysplit trajectory, which shows our projection of travel from a given altitude and location. We start with our launch location and projected altitude and create a model showing the projected path over a 48 or 84 hour period. The NOAA Hysplit Trajectory model takes into account the weather, pressure, and Jetstream, and adjusts the altitude and direction. During the flight this committee will update the Hysplit models.

We are now planning our next launch on Saturday September 3rd 2022 at Willow Hill Golf Course, 1350 Willow Rd. in Northbrook, IL. We will be launching two balloons, KD9UQB for Jim Janiak, and AA6DY for Michael Seedman, and now with the Go Ahead from our committee, we will be meeting at 8:30 am Saturday September 3rd.

So, what do we have in common with Artemis? We research, prepare and test, up to and throughout our launch.

August 14th, 2022, KD9TPM, MIA

/ Cary Willis, KD9ITO / 1 Comment

KD9TPM was launched on July 30th from Willow Hill Golf Course in Northbrook, Illinois and came alive on July 31st over Canada. We last heard from our balloon on August 10th over the North Pacific Ocean. KD9TPM had flown 10 days and 16 hours and we now declare it Missing In Action.

KD9TPM travel map from July 30th 2022 to August 10th 2022 courtesy of WSPR.Rocks

We are in our planning stages for our next launch and will keep an eye out for KD9TPM

Our Technical Team is working on building our Solar Panel and Antenna packages and look forward to many future launches.

73, Cary KD9ITO

August 10th 2022, 06:36 UTC Grid RN36bb North Pacific Ocean

/ Cary Willis, KD9ITO / Leave a comment

KD9TPM went to sleep at Grid RN36bb heading south over the North Pacific Ocean. We have flown 10 days, 16 hours and 32 minutes while awake. Sometimes we get our reports quickly and are able to determine locations and altitude, and sometimes it’s well, really spotty. When it’s spotty like this it takes some patience and some quick math to add the two timeslots, we’re around 9900 meters, 32,400 feet.

Where we go from here? We can wind up towards many different locations, Northeast, Southwest, We can loop around and head towards Canada head back to China or take a more southerly route. I’ve updated our links to Locate and track here is our current Jetstream to see where we may be headed Ventusky North Pacific Ocean

In case you happen to find out where we wake up before I report, please send me an email.

73, Cary

August 7th 2022 2:54 UTC, 8th day, 7 days 22 hours Uzbekistan towards Kazakhstan

/ Cary Willis, KD9ITO / 1 Comment

Good morning, When KD9TPM first reported it was on August 7th 2:54 UTC at 9:54 pm August 6th. I say first reporting but it wasn’t a complete report. For us to see all the data, we must receive informtion on 2 sets of packets, on the 2’s and on the 4’s in a 10 minute time slot. For the first hour or so, we were only receiving the second packet on the 4’s which gave an a Grid but not an altitude. It wasn’t until 4:12 UTC that we recieved our first packet, which gave us an altitutde. We were getting such few spots on this leg of our trip, it was difficut to verify where we were.

With that information, I was able to generate a map but decided to wait till morning to see what else we could get. The next two images are from Gridmapper. The location of our balloon after reporting 2 packets was a 4:14 UTC MN31bi, just north of Aydar Lake, Uzbekistan, at 9,960 meters or 32,600 feet. The 2nd image is for one of our contenstants on Guessing the Gid Square

Below is the Guess from Wendy Berg, KD9RDV Grid MN31e over Aydar Lake, Wendy is our winner for Guessing the Grid Square on awakening

Our first images of our location and complete data came a few hours later.

Though our spots are very few, what we do know is we’re now heading Northeast from Uzbekistan to Kazakhstan and in a much faster Jetstream Uzbekistan towards Kazkhstan and still around 33,000 feet

With the Jetstream picking up, we can travel a great distance from here. The active link above Uzbekistan towards Kazkhstan is a link to Ventusky for our current altitude and Jetstream. Which is also updated on our Links to Locate and Track tab, just click Ventusky.

We’re still making great progress with this little balloon package, below is our last 5 days

It’s easy to play, Guess the Grid Square, either send me an email and I’ll help you sort it out, or for those seasoned players, please go to our links to Loacate and Track tab at the top of our website.

Till this evening, 73, Cary

August 6th, 2022 14:32 UTC, Asleep Grid LN52HF

/ Cary Willis, KD9ITO / Leave a comment

We woke up over the Black Sea and now asleep over the Caspian Sea. We are now in our 8th day of flight having flown 7 days, 1 hour and 2 minutes. We’re showing an altitude 32,500 feet with passing storms. We’d like to congratulate Jim Janiak KD9UQB for getting closest to Guessing the Grid Square just 146Km from the target.

Over the Caspian Sea, asleep 9:52am CDT

As we’re moving East, wake-up is coming earlier. Those participating in Guess the Grid Square, please get those in by 6pm. For information on our contest and how to track, please go to Links to Locate and Track

Even if you’re not participating in our contest, please visit our tracking link above to view APRS.fi, Habhub for other balloons around the world and Ventusky to see wind speed and direction from our altitude.

Till this evening, 73, Cary