CARS High Altitude Balloon Launch 01 July 2014

Chris Stubbs M6EDF launched a High Altitude Balloon from the CARS club night at the Oaklands Museum on the 1st of July 2014. This page contains information on the flight of CARS1 for those interested in tracking the flight.

The flight started at 19:50BST on Tuesday.

19:50BST – Flight launched from Oaklands Museum, Chelmsford
23:05BST – The balloon has passed Maidstone, heading South, floating at 4,600 metres
00:00BST – The balloon left the East Sussex coast, floating over the English Channel towards France
02:50BST – This was the last packet received here in Southend, showing CARS1 halfway across the English Channel heading to France
06:45BST on Wednesday morning, the balloon was still in flight, over France at 5,400metres, but no packets have been received as of 0720BST. Voltage of the single 1.5 volt battery has dropped to 0.7V, so CARS1 may be flying but no longer be transmitting.

The Flightpath

To see where “CARS1″ is, go to http://spacenear.us/tracker/?filter=CARS1

CARS1 / Cheapo 13 as of 23:05 01 July 2014

Last reported position of CARS1 as of 0645BST 02 July 2014

Altitude achieved by CARS1 as of 0645BST 02 July 2014

The Frequency

As of 23:05 local, I’m tracking a very strong signal on 434.293MHz USB – Stations tracking at this time include G6GZH, G0TDJ, M0JCU, PB0AHX, G6SUQ, M6EDF, F5APQ, M0PSX, F1OIL, G4MYS, G7OGX, G8KNN-1, G8KNN, G8JZT, G0WXI, ASTRA_J, G0CXW_2, G8APZ

Receiving CARS1 data from Southend-on-Sea

The last packet received here in Southend-on-Sea was at 0354BST, but it continued to be tracked by others beyond that point.

Chat with Chris

As of 23:00, Chris M6EDF is in the High Altitude chatroom: webchat.freenode.net/?channels=highaltitude – Just made contact to thank Chris for his talk and to confirm he’s very audible in Southend-on-Sea

High Altitude chatroom - chatting to Chris M6EDF