{"id":170,"date":"2013-03-24T16:36:26","date_gmt":"2013-03-24T16:36:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chris-stubbs.co.uk\/wp\/?page_id=170"},"modified":"2013-05-06T15:02:35","modified_gmt":"2013-05-06T14:02:35","slug":"what-is-hab","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/chris-stubbs.co.uk\/wp\/?page_id=170","title":{"rendered":"High Altitude Ballooning – RTTY on 70cms"},"content":{"rendered":"

High Altitude Ballooning (HABbing) is one of my main hobbies. It involves launching a helium balloon with attached “payload<\/a>“. The payload usually consists of a radio GPS tracker and a digital camera. It is enjoyed by a large group of enthusiasts<\/a>. High altitude ballooning is a multi-skilled hobby which lets you explore the edge of space relatively cheaply – a basic flight can cost less than \u00a3200.<\/p>\n

My Payload for NSE1’s Bicknacre flight booked for April 2013… Details to follow…<\/p>\n

\"Untitled\"<\/a>\u00a0\"Untitled\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It contains A home made GPS\/RTTY tracker on 434.650MHz, a small “808” camera, and a GSM\/GPS tracker. Listeners would be much appreciated as the balloon should be well in range around Essex.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you are not interested in launching a balloon, a lot of fun can be had tracking them. There is a distributed listener system<\/a> set up similar to APRS. It allows a multiple stations with their radios connected their computers to upload received telemetry strings to the internet. These strings contain the location of the balloon for tracking and other sensor readings such as pressure, temperature and altitude.<\/p>\n

Once uploaded the information is displayed on the spacenear.us<\/a> map.<\/p>\n

\"hab<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To join in with radio tracking you will need a 70cms rig capable of SSB and a computer connected to the internet. If you do not have a compatible rig, you can check out Pete’s great write up<\/a> on SDR’s. They are perfect for this and are very affordable (<\u00a320). Its exactly how I got started with HABbing but now I use a Yeasu FT-817, hooked up to my laptop running the dl-fldigi decoding software. SDR#’s audio output can be piped into the dl-fldigi software using “Stereo Mix” as a virtual input. A full write up on how to track<\/a> along with a whole wealth of other information can be found on UKHAS<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"sdr\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The transmitters usually run on the license free ISM band, meaning they must be limited to 10mW. This sounds like nothing but when the balloons get high up you get a fantastic line of sight. RTTY at 50 baud is also very good at getting through on a weak signal. The record for furthest received string at 10mW is a whopping 800km!<\/p>\n

SSDV<\/a> is starting to be used to send back live digital images from on-board balloon webcams over RTTY. It is a little more tricky to decode as it uses a higher data rate (300-600 baud). The functionality for receiving this is built into dl-fldigi.<\/p>\n

\"tardis_space\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Daveake’s Raspberry Pi based TARDIS<\/a> payload used SSDV to beam back this fantastic image!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If you are interested and fancy a chat with some fellow enthusiasts please drop by the IRC<\/a> channel #highaltitude on irc.freenode.net, they are very friendly and knowledgeable!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chris
\nM6EDF<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

High Altitude Ballooning (HABbing) is one of my main hobbies. It involves launching a helium balloon with attached “payload“. The payload usually consists of a radio GPS tracker and a digital camera. It is enjoyed by a large group of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":207,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-170","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chris-stubbs.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chris-stubbs.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chris-stubbs.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chris-stubbs.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chris-stubbs.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=170"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/chris-stubbs.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411,"href":"https:\/\/chris-stubbs.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/170\/revisions\/411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chris-stubbs.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chris-stubbs.co.uk\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}