LEAD Balloon Launch Day Details

LEAD Balloon Project

How it works

• Launch go/no-go decision
  • Weather is a huge factor, so we don't make the launch/no-launch decision until as late as possible, usually the day/night before the target launch day.
  • If the weather is looking bad, we might proactively postpone the launch several days in advance.
• Launch location
  • Launching in Pennsylvania would be convenient, but means we'd have to recover in PA as well. Not so fun. (Forests, serious hills, streams, lakes, etc.)
  • Ohio has much nicer terrain for recovering a payload, lots of flat farm areas, etc.
  • We run trajectory projections via http://weather.uwyo.edu/polar/balloon_traj.html, and we pick several potential sites.
  • The actual intended launch site isn't chosen until the night before and then double checked the morning of the launch.
  • That gives us a general area with a few (we hope) actual sites to pick from once we get there to see how they look. Google maps, FlashEarth, are all nice, but they can be out of date.

• Meet at the shop at 8am
• Caravan departs when we're loaded up and ready.
  • If you aren't at the shop at 8, we might be gone by the time you arrive.
• We'll update the specific launch page with our guess at a launch area, so you can try to meet us there.
  • BUT, until we get to the launch site and get our eyes on it, we won't know exactly where it will be. We'll try to update the wiki page and/or set a APRS node to the launch point. Also watch for the balloon's APRS location to start showing up as we'll have the electronics running a little bit before the launch.
• We'll be running APRS from at least one car, details on the specific launch page, if you want to try to catch us or just follow along from home.
• We aim to launch between 10:30 and 11am.
• We might stop for crappy fast food lunch sometime between launch and burst, depending on where the balloon is going and where we are.
  • We did stopped for lunch on all the launches in 2010. We regretted stopping on the 3rd launch, when the balloon got caught in the jet stream on the way down and was doing over 90mph and we were hustling to keep up.
  • Pack snacks/etc in case we do not stop for lunch!
• We use Ham Radio HT's for car and caravan communications. 146.520 is the national simplex calling frequency.
• We probably won't be back to Pittsburgh until dinner time.

What to bring

• If you want to get out of your car and help look for the payload on recovery, you'll want decent shoes/boots and long pants.
  • Take it from me (Doug), scrambling through jagger bushes in shorts is no fun.
• Field glasses/binoculars for watching balloon go up, hopefully watching it come down, and scouting for it during recovery.
• Maps. Or a smart phone with Maps or a GPS.
• HT radio if you have it. An extra wouldn't hurt, even if for use listening by non-hams during recovery.
• Hat.
• Suntan lotion if you aren't wearing long sleeves, long pants and a hat. It could take us quite a while of tromping to recover the payload.
• Water and snacks. We'll eat lunch and probably have a group dinner after we get back to Pittsburgh, but...
• Laptop and hot spot of if you happen to have it, or smart phone with a browser for following the balloon on aprs.fi (see specific launch page for the links)
• ...