NSTAR's  2002 Flights

• Flight 02-A Details

• Flight 02-B Details

• Flight 02-C Details

• Flight 02-D Details (GPSL 2002)

• Flight 02-E Details

• Flight 02-F Details

Flight 02-A - 23 February 2002 - 0951 CST (1551 UTC)

The 23rd was a near-perfect day for a launch, considering it was late February.  Temperatures in the early morning were in the high 30s, with 60s expected by afternoon.  Most of the chase teams arrived by 8:30am and we had an opportunity to socialize and take our time with launch preparation.  By 9:20 the winds were starting to pick up a little, so I decided we'd start preparing for the launch a little early.

We had a little trouble during the fill with the wind blowing the balloon about, but it wasn't anything that risked the launch.  After we got everything powered up and tested, we launched into a 10-15mph southerly breeze at 9:51 am.

Within a few minutes of launch, we could see that the balloon was rising at about 1300 ft/min which was a bit faster than the 1100 ft/min expected.  Since that would take us up through the strong jet winds faster, we figured the landing would be a little short of Mt Ayr.  The simplex repeater was OK on the ground, but soon we had difficulty hearing it.  Future flights will have the repeater on a higher power setting.  The backup beacon was set for the same power and we also had difficulty hearing it.  We headed east on US 6 to 59, then south to US 34.  As we got on the east side of Red Oak, the balloon was ascending through 60,000 ft and had slowed down.  We decided to stop near the intersection of US 34 and US 71 to await the burst.

Because of the cloud cover and its position relative to the sun, we were unable to see the balloon this time.   Burst occurred at 1116 CST at an altitude of 93,232 ft.  Based on the burst location, we then projected the landing would be southeast of Sharpsburg, so we then proceeded east on 34 and then south on Hwy 148.

As we headed south on 148, it became apparent that the balloon would land not far east of 148.  By the time we approached the town of Gravity, the balloon was passing 148 about a mile or two south of us and heading east.  We turned east on a main road, then dropped south one mile to a county road.  However, the balloon turned more sharply north than expected and we ended up back towards the main road we had just left.  The landing was just before noon CST in a grassy field about 100 yards away from the road.  Fortunately there were no power lines in sight and only a few short trees it could have tangled with.  Larry N0BKB and Mike N0GGU were chasing from the south and east and joined up shortly after landing.  After recovery, we headed for the Godfathers Pizza in nearby Bedford for some lunch.

NSTAR 02-A Flight Summary	Part of the NSTAR 02-A chase team near the landing  site.  The payloads are in the foreground.

The simplex repeater did work through the flight, but the output was too weak to be useful.  The repeater appeared to hear ground stations fairly well, but we could not hear the output well at all.  My home station did not record much traffic either.  Since the antenna setup was the same as for previous flights, I suspect the lower power setting was the problem.  Next flight we'll have high power set for the VX-1Rs.

The backup beacon had powered off near impact, but was working just prior.  The impact shock may have briefly caused the spring contacts on the battery to open.  It was not padded well for this flight, so I'll try a different setup next time.  The backup beacon was not very useful either.  Paul KC0KXR monitored it through 28,000 ft, but after that it was too weak to be useful.  My home station copied it well up to about 40,000 ft, then only intermittently through 90,000 ft.  No packets were decoded on the descent, though some of us did monitor the audio output and the beacon was transmitting.  It too will be set to high power for the next flight.

The primary beacon had mixed success and failure too.  I had inserted some programming to detect balloon burst and to control a still camera to provide pictures at different levels.  This programming worked flawlessly.  However, because I had relocated the beacon's antenna closer to the payload, the RF generated by the beacon interfered with the serial GPS data.  Characters were garbled causing the beacon to report its position, course, and/or speed incorrectly sometimes.  This only affected packets transmitted about 0:16 after each minute.  The reason for this was deduced to be the transmission of the telemetry packet immediately prior to this position packet.  While the telemetry packet is being transmitted, the GPS data for position, course, and speed (the $GPRMC string) is being read in from the GPS.  The garbled characters then were parsed and formatted incorrectly for transmission.  This will be cured by (a) moving the telemetry transmission to a different time in the cycle, and (b) possibly changing the antenna setup for the primary beacon.

The camcorder recorded for about 1 h 45 min, then the battery ran out.  This was enough to record through burst and about 10-15 minutes afterwards.  The B/W viewfinder was not working afterwards, possibly due to high-voltage breakdown. The camcorder itself still functions and will be used on future flights.  The videotape was fine and I'll post some clips and stills at a future date.

Thanks to Paul KC0KXR and Doug KA0O for providing log files.  This made the flight record nearly 100%.  Also thanks to Scott Clark for the use of his farm as a launch site, and to the rest of the NSTAR launch and recovery team.

• NSTAR 02-A's data (340kb .zip).

• Omaha World-Herald photo

Flight 02-B - 30 March 2002 - 1056 CST (1656 UTC)

NSTAR 02-B had a successful flight on Saturday, March 30th from the Central Plains Severe Weather Symposium in Lincoln.  The NWS office in Valley NE contributed two balloons to help support our flight.

Most of the launch crew arrived between 7:30 and 8am in order to get parking spaces near the launch site in front of the conference center. I gave a presentation on NSTAR from 9 to 9:45, then we started the equipment setup outside.

About 10:35am we started to fill the balloon. This all went normally, and I noticed that the Kaymont "severe-weather" balloon was more round than teardrop-shaped after inflation. As we put the lanyards through the ring, I noticed that the heat shrink that I had around the knots on one of them had come off and the string was rather frayed. No matter, I thought, I'll fix it later if I get a chance.

The previous presentation ended at 10:45 and the crowd came out to watch the launch. Probably had a couple of hundred on hand. We winch the balloon out into position, check in with Lincoln Tower, do our countdown from five, then Wayne KE6DZD upends the crescent wrench holding the lanyards and away it goes.

NSTAR 02-B just before its second launch attempt of the morning for the crowd at the Central Plains Severe Weather Symposium in Lincoln, Nebraska on March 30th.  (Eric Freier photo)

NSTAR 02-B Flight Summary

For about fifteen feet. The lanyard snags on the ring - looks like a rat's nest up there. Nuts. Doug KA0O suggests cutting the lanyard away, but I give it a good tug to see if I can clear it (as if Doug's pulling wasn't good enough).

Suddenly the payload comes screaming earthward - the chute billows open and it all lands in front of the gasping crowd. My reaction, hopefully unvoiced, was "what the...?" The balloon is still caught on the lanyards, but I figure it will slowly unravel itself and go free all by itself shortly.

I can see a length of string dangling from the balloon - initially I thought that was the load line and that it had snapped near the clip ring I use to attach to the top of the chute. I check the chute and a full length of load line is still there, so then I surmised it was sawed in two by the lanyards near the balloon neck.

Meanwhile we're carefully reeling the balloon back in, expecting it to go any time, most likely just before we can secure it. We catch a break, however, as I was able to get the free end of the lanyard and we get the balloon back. We attach the load line directly to the ring, then let the balloon out by the load line rather than risk a lanyard fouling again. So after a few more minutes and a check to make sure the payloads are still functioning, we have our second launch of the day at 10:56am with the same balloon.

The chase team piles into their vehicles and off we go towards Nebraska City. Lots of contacts heard on the simplex repeater - it's working much better than the previous flight. I have my D7 in the car with me tuned to the backup beacon and the laptop is monitoring the primary. Both are going fine.

We knew ahead of time we were unlikely to be near the balloon at landing. Fortunately, Larry N0BKB, Mike N0GGU, and Steve N0ORU are already in Bedford, and Don KA0JLF, Cris N0XZB, and Bob K0FPC are heading north from St Joseph. Burst is at 78,760 ft, but the capsule APRS bulletin had it at 78,482 ft. Need to check the programming on this.

Landing was at 12:54pm (1854 UTC) between Clearfield and Diagonal IA in a plowed cornfield about 200 yds from the road. Again, no powerlines nearby, but if it had drifted downwind a bit farther it might have gotten caught in a copse of trees. All the payloads worked after the landing and nothing was broken. The chase teams headed for Corning for a pizza lunch.

The videotape shows that the VHF backup beacon caused a burp in the video recording every 30 seconds when it transmitted. This was probably due to the higher power and the antenna's proximity to the camcorder (it was directly above it and probably had a lot of radiation off the coax shield etc.).

Click here to get NSTAR 02-B's data (340kb .zip).

Flight 02-C - 19 May 2002 - 0818 CDT (1318 UTC)

The flight itself went pretty well, though we did have a scare towards the end that made me think I'd be building another payload.

The team arrived at Scott KC0MTH's place about 7am. The weather was near perfect for a launch, though a bit chilly for mid-May - there was frost on the ground when we arrived. Skies were clear and there was practically no wind. We started filling a little late, nearly 7:50am. Launch occurred at 0818 CDT.

We knew we had a long chase ahead of us, so we hit the road soon after launch. The balloon was right on the forecast track, but our ascent rate was 1300-1400 ft/min, faster than expected. In any case, we stuck with the pre-launch plan of heading towards Grant City, MO via US59/US34/Hwy 25/US169. The crossband repeater worked well in the beginning, but we didn't hear much other than kerchunking after a half hour or so.

Burst occurred at 0935 CDT at 93,412 ft. The descent rates looked good after burst, but they gave me a brief scare that the chute fouled - they increased for two consecutive reports instead of decreasing like they should. After that, the descent settled into the normal pattern.

A while later, we began to hear traffic again on the repeater. Ralph W0RPK was able to get in to tell us that he would not be chasing from his QTH. As the balloon descended below 20,000 feet, I began to be concerned about the landing. My "eyeball" projections were putting the landing near the confluence of three rivers southwest of Albany, MO. As it got lower and lower, I was increasingly concerned that it would actually land in the river, or at least in the trees near the river. The last position report I got at 2300 ft MSL (about 1300ft AGL) showed the balloon within 50-100 yards of Street Atlas's plot of the East Fork of the Grand River. The winds were so light at that level, and they were from the north anyway that with the river oriented north-south there was little or no hope of the balloon moving far away from the river at the last minute.

Not knowing what the river was like, I had visions of the payloads actually landing in the river and floating downstream, or at a minimum in the trees alongside. Most rivers in the area have a lot of trees on both banks, so I had visions of trying to find out the landowner's name and location, getting a chain saw, etc. Or, if it landed in the river, figuring whether it would be worth it to search along the banks for it in case it drifted to the edge, and so on. The payload had landed by the time we approached Grant City, so we stopped briefly at a gas station for a restroom break.

Street Atlas USA showed some roads leading to within a half mile of the last position report. From the way some of them were bent and twisted, I was sure they were narrow gravel roads and indeed they were. SA also showed "Albany Junction" as a place name, but as we approached there was no more than a grove of trees at that location. As we approached, we got a packet from the primary payload and could hear the crossband repeater again. This was somewhat good news, as that meant the payload wasn't under water but we might still need a chain saw. As we ran out of marked roads, we drove a few hundred yards down a dirt track that was on top of a dike in the flood plain.

As I looked around I began to be more optimistic about our chances. We crossed the middle fork of the Grand River twice on the way and I wouldn't call it a river - more of a creek. Even so, I could see very tall trees that I estimated were a half mile east of us which were lining the east fork near where the capsules landed. The GPS showed 0.43 miles to the landing position.

About 1/4 mile from us was a tree line on another dike. As we walked to it in the direction of the capsules, I could see that there was another field between this tree line and the trees along the river. That made me feel better but still there was a good chance the payload was snagged in those trees. We got to the tree line and climbed up the dike to have a look.

Hallelujah! I could see the chute and payload lying on the open ground. It was about 100 yards from the treeline - fortunately the river was not very wide and neither was the tree growth along it. We walked out across the corn field and recovered the payload.

Everything was intact. The balloon shards had fouled with the repeater payload (the bottom one of the two) and may have partially fouled the chute. There was no slack in the load line from the top of the chute to where it had fouled with the payload, so we may have been lucky it didn't deform the chute so badly that it failed to work. Our descent rates were normal so the chute worked well enough. We went into nearby Albany and were lucky to find a pizza place open for lunch.

On the way home, I took note of how wooded this part of the country is. I may reconsider flights that would land us in this part of Missouri, or most any place south of Hwy 2 in Iowa. North of 2 and west of I-35 things are far more open.

View some photos taken by Kurt KC0HMI

Movies also taken by Kurt:

• Filling the balloon (25Mb)
• Tying off the balloon (5 Mb)
• Launch (2 Mb)
• Starting the chase (5 Mb)

Flight 02-D - 6 July 2002 - 0942 CDT (1418 UTC)

Click here for the GPSL 2002 photo album.

Flight 02-D was one of six flights at the 2002 Great Plains Super Launch. Because of the forecast winds, the launch was moved from the Johnson Near Space Center about 8 miles southwest of Manhattan to the Herington Municipal Airport about 7 miles east of Herington.

The launch crews began arriving about 7am. A few of the local residents had come out to watch the launch, and some more came as the morning progressed. Skies were clear but hazy, with temps in the low 70s and quite humid. An occasional light breeze was out of the southeast.

We unloaded our equipment and began moving the helium tanks outside. Though we had permission to use the hangar, the ceiling and door were a little low and with the light winds it was quite suitable to launch outside. We spent a fair amount of time checking out payloads and began filling around 8:30am. Six groups flew on this morning - TVNSP, NSTAR, EOSS, Traveler, KD0FW, and HABITAT.

Mike KD0FW brought an old and rather unusual balloon. The balloon had a date code of 1980 and the latex was a very dark brown. However, it was still flexible and looked OK. There was a string running inside the balloon that was attached to the top and terminated in a plastic ring at the bottom.

A couple of minor problems soon cropped up. KD0FW's balloon took a decided turn for the worse. The balloon developed a bulge on one side and looked like an aneurysm ready to pop. Sometime a little after 9am the 22-year-old balloon gave out and with a snap released all its helium. Fortunately WB8ELK had his 1200g balloon that he couldn't use, so we were still able to fly his payload.

The other minor problem occurred while EOSS was filling. The hose came off the regulator and could not be reattached. With a combination of duct tape and another regulator assembly, they were also able to continue.

A little later, the wind began to pick up with some gusts to 10-15 knots. This spurred us to get moving a little faster and we walked the balloons into launch position around 9:30am. As our group winched our balloon out, I noticed that the shroud lines were not straight - the shroud ring needed turned around. I unhooked the payloads and got it sorted out after a few tense moments.

Finally, we were ready to go. Paul KD4STH did a "ready" call for all the groups and after a five-count, everyone let their payloads go at 9:42:30am CDT (+/- 5 sec). What a sight! All of the balloons drifted to the northwest as they rose into the hazy Kansas sky.  See a movie from the payload's view (12 Mb Windows Media).

With a short chase expected, we had plenty of time to load our equipment. All the payloads were running fine and putting out good data. With 5 APRS payloads on 144.34 MHz (KD0FW was tracked by DF only), it was a busy frequency! Three of the payloads were time slotted (EOSS, TVNSP, and NSTAR), while the other two (Traveler, HABITAT) were at intervals that would not consistently collide with the same payload. The sharing worked out well and we had plenty of data for tracking purposes.

Around 10:20am we left the launch site and headed towards Herington. We planned to stop at a gas station Street Atlas USA had promised us, but it had gone out of business. Fortunately there was a Dairy Queen next door and several stopped in for some snacks. We stayed at the Dairy Queen until about 10:50am, soon after Traveler had burst (the first of the day).

As we left Herington, it became apparent Traveler would be down well before the others, and that we could chase it to its landing and still have time to make the other landings. With the capsule reporting about once per minute, it was difficult to dead-reckon the reports into where to look. We chased north of Highway 4 on some gravel roads and pulled up parallel to Traveler's track about 1/2 mile to the west. To my knowledge, none of us saw it touch down at 11:11 am CDT.

Seeing that Traveler was in a relatively safe area with its own chase team going for the recovery, we then took a look at what else was happening. While we were chasing Traveler on its terminal descent, EOSS and TVNSP had burst shortly before 11am. Both were coming down in close proximity to each other, with TVNSP about three minutes lower. We got back on Hwy 4 westbound and headed for Hope and then Elmo, KS. Enroute to Hope, we saw that NSTAR had burst at 11:25 at an altitude of 81,978 ft. With the light winds all from the SSE below about 30,000 ft, the end part of the chase was relatively easy. We turned north on Hwy 15 and began considering where to stop to see TVNSP land.

As we stopped on 15, TVNSP was crossing over the road and from the track looked as though it would land nearby. I got out of the car and was able to see TVNSP at about 1000 ft AGL. At times it appeared it would stop moving north, so I hopped the fence with my camera thinking maybe I could run a couple hundred yards and catch it. But then it took off to the north again and landed a few hundred yards away at 11:44am in what looked like a good area.

Map showing all five balloon tracks, plus approximate landing location for KD0FW's non-APRS package

With the second payload on the ground, my attention turned to EOSS on nearly the same track. Since I had a good vantage point, I decided to stay in place and look for the EOSS payload. Sure enough, within a minute or two it was also visible and it landed a little farther away at 11:47am.

Now it was NSTAR's turn. Actually, it looked like it too would land not far away. Using the just-completed descents of the other two payloads, I surmised the landing would be west and a bit north of the EOSS landing. We went north to the next county road and then west a mile.

Suddenly, APRSPlus locked up on me with NSTAR still a couple of minutes from landing. I couldn't close the program and a bit later lost the OS. Great - a chance for another "catch" and I'm without data for the last few minutes. Paul KC0KXR and Doug KA0O both had APRSPlus, so after some frantic running back and forth we made another adjustment for our vantage point.

We stopped on a gravel road on the next section boundary west of the EOSS and TVNSP landings and got out to look for the parachute. There it was! About 1000 feet up, off to our SSE and headed our way. The payload was descending in a spiral manner and I thought maybe it would come close enough to us to catch the power lines next to the road. But it stopped short and fell into a corn field about 100 yds east of the road at 12:02pm CDT.

We found the landowner and got permission to get the payload. Everything was intact and operating - the corn even kept the payloads from hitting the ground. After we got back, Mike W5VSI and Rick N0KKZ joined us. We took a few pictures and then got on the radio to find out where to go next.

Don KA0JLF's payload had also come down nearby, about 10 minutes before NSTAR did. We got a general description of where it was and drove off that direction. Shortly we got a packet of the landing position and parked on the road next to the field it landed in. Soon most everyone had arrived and Don went off in search of his payload, which was also found intact.

Now the only one left to deal with was Mike KD0FW's ATV and simplex repeater. EOSS, with its extensive DF experience was already on the job. As we moved back east, we tried to key up the simplex repeater on 147.585 in the hopes of having a stronger signal to DF. Others were listening on the ATV carrier frequency. Since there were plenty of vehicles in the hunt, those of us with vehicles capable of hauling helium tanks went back to the airport to move them closer to Manhattan and save some time for Paul on Monday.

After getting the tanks, we headed for Junction City to leave film at Wal-Mart and sat down to get something to drink. While waiting on the 1-hour photo job, we found out that Mike's package had been successfully located and everyone was arriving at Cracker Barrel for a mid-afternoon lunch.

As it turned out, we could have flown from JNSC if our payloads had followed the same profile. Traveler would have landed between Fort Riley and the Milford Reservoir, and the rest would have been a few miles west of the reservoir. But it still would not have been safe to do so.

Click here for the GPSL 2002 photo album.

Flight 02-E - 15 September 2002 - 0804 CDT (1304 UTC)

The launch crew began arriving shortly after 7am on a clear and relatively cool morning for mid-September - it was in the mid 40s at sunrise.  A very light wind from the north was apparent, but not enough to bother us.  We started preparations at 7:30am.  As we neared our launch time of 0800, we noticed a hot-air balloon to our north and it passed about a half mile to the west.  Later we found this was Matt Fenster's "Third Priority" balloon from nearby Council Bluffs.

We switched on the capsule's camcorder and release the balloon at 1304 UTC.  As it ascended, we noticed a lot less rotation of the capsules, especially compared to the previous flight at GPSL 2002.  The main and backup beacon were working fine and the simplex repeater was also functioning.

Our first stop was near a restaurant at US34 and US59 just north of Emerson, about 20 miles away.  On our way, we heard only a handful of simplex repeater contacts outside of the chase team, the most distant heard from Des Moines.  Soon after we arrived at the stop, we were able to track the balloon with the naked eye and the payloads were visible with binoculars.  Burst occurred about 13:49:17 UTC at an altitude of 53,212 ft.  With perfectly clear skies today and a good position relative to the sun, I was able to see the burst with the naked eye and could even see the cloud of talc for several seconds afterwards.  Other chase team members saw the burst with binoculars and the payload falling away.

The chase team broke into 2-3 different groups for the terminal part of the chase, since the landing was expected to be only a few miles away from our stop.  We got onto some county roads and tried to guess the landing.  Some of the team was able to see the payloads and parachute just under 10,000 ft.  Our group stopped while the balloon was at 5000 ft, but by now it was apparent it would land in the middle of a section and not near any roads.  We saw the payloads spiraling down because the chute was deformed by the weight of the balloon remnants again.  

Landing occurred at 1422 UTC (0922 CDT) in a cornfield about 0.3 miles off the nearest road.  There was a grass trail leading back into the field for most of that distance, but Paul KC0KXR and I hiked the final 200 yards into the corn to retrieve the payload.  The chute remained on top of the corn, which helped us spot the payload before we started in, but once we entered the field we had no visibility beyond about three rows.  We also could not hear the others trying to guide us towards the payload by shouting - only radio comm worked.  We had a good GPS fix on the payload, so we used that mostly.

One of the goals of this flight was to get video from launch to landing.  However, the camera quit about 15 minutes after burst.  I believe the batteries were still good enough to operate the camcorder, so perhaps the cold caused the camera to shut down.  I'll be doing some freezer tests on it in the future.  The simplex repeater did not have as much traffic, though I don't know if it was due to fewer attempts or poor reception.  

I did make e-mail contact with Matt Fenster, the hot-air balloon pilot.  He didn't see our launch, but is interested in attending one in the future.

See the video of the launch and chase here (7Mb Real Video file, about 13 minutes) and this video from the payload (13 Mb Real Video)  Additional photos are at Kurt KC0HMI's site.  

Download data from the 02-E flight (~350 kb)

NSTAR 02-F - 2 November 2002 - 0754 CST (1354 UTC)

On this flight, we had hoped to make an EBBE (earth-balloon-balloon-earth) using the NSTAR payload and a simultaneous flight by the Experimental Sub-Orbital Society (ES-OS) in Colorado.  However, ES-OS encountered some equipment problems prior to launch and had to scrub.  Since their participation was not critical to our flight, we launched anyway.

During the few days prior to launch, the wind forecasts indicated a fairly long chase.  We chose to launch from west of Omaha instead of our usual site near Treynor.  This kept the landing farther west in Iowa in a more favorable area.  We had four chase vehicles downrange for this flight: Doug KA0O left from Bellevue, Scott KC0MTH left from Treynor, Larry N0BKB from Greenfield IA, and Mike N0GGU came north from Missouri.  It would be impossible for the chase crews at the launch site to keep up with the balloon give the 130-mph winds at altitude, so having other chasers downrange already would ensure the payload could be located and recovered soon after landing.

NSTAR 02-F Flight Summary Photo Album

Launch prep proceeded normally.  I noticed that the backup beacon locked up at one point, but after cycling the power it appeared to function normally.  We waited for a few minutes after filling while ES-OS in Colorado debugged their payload.  At about 7:45am ES-OS informed us they were scrubbing their mission, so we proceeded with our launch at 0754 CST.

The launch team proceeded back to Omaha to get on I-80, then on Hwy 92 east of Council Bluffs.  As we went along, we found the simplex repeater rapidly became unusable and the backup beacon was not functioning.  The logs revealed the backup beacon stopped transmitting shortly before launch.  It appeared the simplex repeater could hear OK, but was not transmitting well.  I plan to attached something to the repeater's J-pole to stiffen it and cause it to hang straight below the payload.

Since we had the digipeater enabled on the main payload, we were able to communicate with the forward chase teams.  The Omaha-based group continued east to US71, then south to US34 and east to Osceola.  Burst occurred a few miles NW of Creston IA at 105,581 ft at 0941 CST.  

By the time the Omaha teams reached Creston, the balloon was on the ground.  We made a quick restroom and fuel stop in Creston, then continued on to Osceola.  We had a little difficulty reaching the landing site, as one road that was supposed to be continuous wasn't, and an Amtrak train chose that particular time to stop in the middle of Osceola.  

Unbeknownst to us, several other chasers had come from the Des Moines area and were also at the landing site.  We had a crowd of close to 20 at the landing.  The landing site was in a cow pasture about 50 yds from a gravel road and a set of probably 6kV power lines.  After recovery, we all went to the Pizza Hut in Osceola before returning home.

Two stations set telemetry reception distance records during this flight.  K5OL and K9KK in the Oklahoma City area received the data at distances of 440.5 and 439.2 miles, respectively.  Several quick keyboard QSOs via the digipeater were also noted.

The still camera worked perfectly.  Every picture commanded by the BS2 program was taken.  A few extras were taken on the way up due to GPS altitude glitches.  The photos on the way down were not very good due to rapid payload motion.  On future flights I will inhibit taking photos on descent until near ground level.  Check out the 02-F photo album.

The camcorder was set to SP record mode, which yielded only 40 minutes of video.  Without a working viewfinder, it is very difficult to change or verify the settings on the camcorder.  I have purchased another used camcorder off eBay for use in 2003.  This one has a color viewfinder that should hopefully not go bad at high altitude.

Lots of interference to the camcorder was noted from the main payload transmitter on 144.34 MHz.  When this payload transmits on 144.39 MHz, there is far less interference.  I will check this again with the new camcorder to see if there is the same frequency dependence. 

These payloads flew on 02-F:

• Primary APRS: 144.34 MHz, callsign N9XTN-11 (vertical polarization)

• Backup APRS: 144.39 MHz, callsign N9XTN-12 (vertical polarization)

• Simplex repeater: 446.300 MHz (new vertically-polarized J-pole)

• Elph still camera

• Camcorder

Last updated March 15, 2004

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