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In article ,
(N2EY) writes: Leo wrote in message ... On 09 Nov 2004 12:26:50 GMT, PAMNO (N2EY) wrote: In article , Leo writes: On 5 Nov 2004 17:31:32 -0800, (Brian Kelly) wrote: snip Here, from the FCC R&O, is what that money bought us: "We similarly do not find that Amateur Radio frequencies warrant the special protection afforded frequencies reserved for international aeronautical and maritime safety operations. While we recognize that amateurs may on occasion assist in providing emergency communications," it described typical amateur operations as "routine communications and hobby activities." Oh oh. We've been caught. The FCC said the dreaded "hobby" word. Then we should grab that ball and run with it! Run with what? With a revised definition of what ham radio is all about, and its importance in today's world. Then YOU should start the redefinition off instead of passing the buck over to anyone else. To paraphrase Orwell, the FCC sees all license holders as equal, but some are more equal than others.....amateur radio apparently being on the 'less than equal' side of the equation......non-essential, per se. I don't know about the Orwellian part ("Animal Farm" reference well-done and duly noted) but it's hard to argue that all of amateur radio is more important or even equal with, say, maritime or aeronautical safety communications. What I see FCC saying is just that those safety communications deserve the most protection. Isn't that impossible in the self-righteous glorification of amateur radio? You surely must have noted the insistence by so many hams that the government-commercial infrastructure always fails in a disaster or emergency yet hams and ham gear are always there to take over and save the day. Of course the idea that *any* licensed service does not have absolute protection from interference caused by an unlicensed, incidental radiator is the real problem. And it's not a "science" problem but a "political" problem. It is ALL a "political problem." Politics DEFINES which radio services are "licensed" or not. "Licensed" radio services did not come about by Divine Intervention. Most of what goes over the internet is "routine communications and hobby activities" isn't it? ...which has what relevance to the topic of amateur radio and BPL? BPL is being touted as something we *need*, for some reason or other. Why do we *need* high speed internet via BPL at all? Why is such access so needed that licensed radio services must tolerate interference from BPL systems? Quit asking all those questions and start giving some answers. IOW, what will BPL do that is so much more important - more "vital" - than ham radio and other licensed radio services? For one thing, it would open the doors to having more Chat Rooms where hobbyist hams could sit around all day and high-five each other that They were of vital need to the nation (because they are officially licensed) because the ARRL told them they were. Jim, it looks like your "it's an avocation, not a hobby" arguement didn't work - they seem to have seen right through it and figured out what Amateur Radio is anyway! Nice try, though. I say we go forward on all fronts - hobby, avocation, public service, education, emergency comms, tinkering, advancing SOTA, etc. If they're gonna call us hobbyists, then make it a badge of honor, same as was done with the title "ham operator". Nice flag waving, Jim, but is there a strategy behind that lofty statement? I'm following K0HB's "PBI" concept. Come up with ideas and see where they lead. You have to check in with Kellie to see if he approves of your "brainfarts." Go forward how, with what, to whom, and to what goals and objectives? Publicity, for one. How we present ourselves to Congress, the FCC, and our BPL opponents, for another. So far, that job has been quite POOR in the USA. I've seen plenty of "Sportsmen for Bush" and "Sportsmen for Kerry" bumperstickers. By folks who hunt and fish for "a hobby". Ham radio is not a sport. Ice hockey is a sport. Hunting and fishing are loosely defined as "sport." Ham radio is a hobby. Or was that just a "one for the Gipper" thing that you thought sounded real cool? Nope. Tsk. Sure sounded that way... The regulatory folks have made it pretty clear - do you have a plan to have them overruled somehow? By whom? - the decision on BPL is entirely within their sphere of control. Congress is one avenue. Another is simply to make amateur radio more visible and better understood. ...which means getting BEYOND the pages of ARRL publications and into the mass media. Very puny efforts by the ARRL to make any sort of mass media entry in the last half century or so. Example: The mass media journalists duly reported many, many groups out hunting for shuttle debris, lots of photographs shown of people engaged (and some identified) in that plus shots of debris itself in various places of the US of A. Where was it identified that amateur radio groups were the "leaders" or even participants of such activity? Answer: On the league website and in QST. Not exactly mass media outlets. More examples: Many disasters and emergencies have been chronicled by the news media in the last half century, much film and video footage, many many photos, hundreds of column-inches of type composed about all that. Hardly any mention at all of ham radio involvement and, if it were, confined to what has been termed "health and welfare" messaging. Where has it been glowingly reported as of vital interest? On the league website and in pages of QST. Again, NOT mass media. Amateur radio publicity MUST go beyond the puny efforts of the league in getting out the message. The league has been ineffective using its old approach. Cable TV has hundreds of channels covering an amazing assortment of activities. There are at least three programs on Arts and Crafts on the schedules (would have been a fourth but Aleene's went off). There are none about amateur radio. Has "Dateline" or "60 Minutes" done any reporting of amateur radio in their existance on network TV? Any of the news broadcasts? [answer: Hardly any if at all.] Yet the league glowling reports (in remarkable vague implications) all the wonderful work done by amateurs and they Believe it all, hook line and sinker. You should realize that league self-glorification is what they do for a living...to convince all that they should be members and that they tell members and non-members what they psychologically want to hear. It ain't necessarily detailed truth, but mostly implied doing of good works. Actually, I see the VHF/UHF allocations as being much more threatened by reallocation than HF. If you've been following all the agencies and organizations going after "bands" you should have said all that spectral territory ABOVE 1 GHz if where the activity is...UHF is essentially fixed as to occupiers now (except some rare instances of government frequencies being freed to allow allocation by the FCC). The radio world is concerned with HF primarily to keep what it has...few are trying to get any part of it. Which, unfortunately, is what the FCC R&O quoted above boils down to - no special protection warranted, it's just a hobby activity. *Most* amateur communications aren't emergency communications. Never have been. "Never have been" what? Finish the sentence. The emergency communications aspect was dismissed pretty neatly in their statement.....the condescending "while we recognize..." line. My point is simply that the FCC isn't buying the argument that we hams need complete protection from BPL because we *sometimes* do emergency communications. Neither do the CC&R folks. So we need a new tactic. Realization! Amazing! A new dawning! :-) Like the "Sportsmen for X" folks. Part of which is a revised definition that shows how unique and valuable a resource amateur radio is - just like the park system. Amateur radio is NOT "just like the park system." Never was. USE of an analogue in POLITICAL divvying-up of resources does NOT mean "just like it." It is just politics. You have to go after it in a political manner...and NOT confine all efforts within the limits of a single membership organization that hasn't gotten much mass media exposure in the last half century. Even though I'll probably never visit most of the nation's parks, they are of value to me. You should get out more. :-) [try a "Lifetime Membership Pass" from the National Park Service] But...none of the Parks I know about have anyone extoling the "unique and valuable resources" of ham radio or morse code, so I doubt you will ever bother with one of those. :-) |
In article , Mike Coslo
writes: Isn't bullemia a cow with a nutrition problem? It would be a cow with no sex life. Sort of what happens to those who get off on fantasy dreams of hobbies being much more than hobbies...a vital need to the nation, etc. Go with the "creshendo" of noble, self-glorifying elevation of a fun hobby into something god-like in its majesty. ["creshendo - menudo without the guts" i.e., tripe ] So...have those "hobbyists on ice" settled their strike yet? :-) |
In article , Mike Coslo
writes: The phrase I object to is "*just* a hobby" - which denies the components of public service, education, etc. Correct. Calling it Just a hobby is like calling Nascar racing "just a bunch of people in cars. Self illuminated ignorance. Tsk, tsk. Calling a PROFESSIONAL SPORT like NASCAR a "hobby" is like saying the Toronto Mapel Leafs are "just a bunch of skaters playing on ice." Does ham radio go on strike? :-) [I could say "puck you" but that would elicit terrible gasps from the rever-end and the prussian schoolmaster...:-) ] NASCAR vehicles go faster on land than a certain CAP ace does in his lil two-seater (as "pilot in command") in the air. So...ham radio is a noble service to the people NOT IN ham radio? It is of vital need of the nation? It "educates" the masses on the theory and techniques of radio? Ham radio survives all disasters when all the infrastructure (commercial, professional built) "fails?" Go for it. Fantasyland is without limits. |
In article , Dave Heil
writes: Len Over 21 wrote: "Bringing up old postings again and again is just a mental form of bullemia." "Old-maid Jim is still into Googling bullemia syndrome..." Leonard, with due respect to your claimed professionalism as a writer, among other things, do you mean "bulimia"? :-) :-) :-) Your output is largely bull. Ergo, the new way to spell a word for your barfing. No problem. Same-o, same-o for the good Rever-never-end "Jim." Don't get a hisnia lifting such weighty subjects... |
In article , Dave Heil
writes: Len Over 21 wrote: In article , (N2EY) writes: In article , (Len Over 21) writes: In article , (Brian Kelly) writes: (Len Over 21) wrote in message ... The parks argument is a good one. The spectum is a natural resource like the forest and the shoreline, and like those it shouldn't be for business use only. Thank you for saying that, Alun. Sincere thanks. About six years ago (or so) in here I tried to point out that there is a good analogue between the hobby of amateur radio and the national park service. The U.S. Park Service has a million acres (give or take) which is reserved for ALL the citizenry to enjoy for their recreation. You did? Google up the post for us, please, Len. Your experience in computer-modem communications should make that an easy task for you. Old-maid Jim is still into Googling bullemia syndrome, still trying to argue old, old postings all over again. And again. And again. :-) It is "bulimia", Len. Master the word and make it your own. :-) I'd say Jim has done a fair job of it. You've been caught with your pants down, old boy. Spare me . . . more snake oil . . one more of your bogus "claims to fame" eh Sweetums? Tsk. I don't "claim any fame" to that analogue. Then why did you mention it, Len? Tsk. All WRONG again, Jimmie? :-) Kellie brought up "claim to fame." I just repudiated it. ...but not successfully. All you want to do is re-argue the PAST. :-) And all you want to do is tap dance out of this mess of your own creation. While I can still manage a time-step or two, this isn't a stage and you are not the audience...but you are rather the usher self-important and with a small flashlight, the one who keeps getting gum on his shoe soles. Face the music (even if you are deaf), amateur radio is basically a HOBBY. There should be absolutely nothing wrong with that concept. What's "wrong" is when someone denies that there are any "nonhobby" aspects to amateur radio. Such as emergency and public service communications, education, advancing the state of the art, etc. Of course...like "advancing the state of the art" in home building all-tube rigs in the 1990s. :-) You can't admit that a number of hams are involved in the public service aspects of amateur radio? NOT near enough to qualify for the self-glorifying political definitions in Part 97...and certainly not from the implied greatness and nobility written up by the league. Three earthquakes, not just one. :-) But it is a matter of public record that radio amateurs participated. Names and calls have been published. How do you account for that? ARRL does the "publishing." Mass media it is NOT. Wire services have "published" all that? I think NOT. Broadcast TV news "published" all that? I think NOT. Being "published" in the weekly Podunk Hollow 6-pager might satisfy legal necessities of "publishing" but the citizenry still doesn't know about amateur radio in detail. Tsk. I was out there, not just "watching TV." Didn't see any "ham emergency" crews at the disaster centers. Maybe they were all home using CW on their rigs? [ "CW gets through when nothing else will...even without electrical power!" ] To make this clear for us, you were actually at the involved disaster centers, Len? All of 'em? So you know for a fact that no radio amateurs were involved in these earthquakes? I've been to more of them than you. :-) Do I know "for a fact" there were no amateurs involved? No, because I don't read QST to find out. I was THERE. Nobody wearing a ham HT on their belt, nobody with a little callsign pin on, no mobiles parked. Just the regular emergency workers plus the FEMA fly-away terminal showing TV with notes posted from anxious relatives. I've seen no government nor NASA reports stating, "No radio amateurs were involved". I've seen no government nor NASA reports stating, "Radio amateurs were involved." If you've seen such a statement, provide the source so that Newington can be better educated. There are plenty of good citizens. Not all of them are equipped to to what radio amateurs did in this case. Why the dodge? "Dodge?" No Dodge, dude. Wife and I drive our Chevrolet. Gosh, "Dave," I've seen no government nor NASA reports that ONLY hams are "good citizens" or that they were "the only ones equipped (with ham radio) to do the shuttle debris searching! Was that in some sensitive (secret) government report that ONLY ex-State people were cleared to read? Pretending that amateur radio is "vital" is a lot of POLITICAL bull**** and you know it. What does it take for something to be "vital", Len? Constant reading and listening to the ARRL. :-) Whatsa matter? You couldn't think of an answer? That WAS the ANSWER, "Dave." The league is constantly self- glorifying itself and always depicts amateur radio as a vital necessity, etc., etc., etc. Kellie wanna practice mental bullemia and barf up old postings. Len, one time is a mistake. The word is "bulimia". "Dave," your word is BULL. Tsk. You morsemen weren't able to successfully argue your cases for anything in the past...now you disguise your later comments on old things as some kind of "truth" of "new things?" Keep tap dancing, Len. Tsk. Got rid of my Haney Plates years ago. "Dave," you are still behaving as the prussian schoolmaster wanting to humiliate his "students.' You are neither schoolmaster nor "expert" but your attitude is superbly prussian. [but with a lower case undeserving of capitalization] That's NOT "weaseling out." That's just plain nuts, morseman. You just can't bring yourself to admit that the idea belonged to another, can you? I have plenty of analogues and admire those who are original, such as the comparison of the park system to setting aside spectrum for hobbyist activities. YOU continually overlook the subject (the analogue) in a poor effort to attempt humiliation and defamation of a single poster as "your argument." That is faulty...but you seem to think you have NO faults. The volume of your material in an attempted defense of the indefensible, says otherwise. You care. Tsk. I can't possibly "care." You said (repeatedly) I am "not involved." That's quite a rant, Leonard. There's a running QST item most months which is called "Media Hits". What kind of items do you think it highlights? Some squib in the Podunk Valley Hollow weekly 6-pager? A Mike Douglas TV show item? :-) Sorry, but the ARRL has been ineffective on getting mass media exposure to amateur radio for years...a whole half-century worth. The best it can hope for in "media hits" is to have CQ quote from the league website on something. All that stays INSIDE the ham media, doesn't venture OUTSIDE to where the politicians and the rest of the citizenry see news and events. Some hams, like yourself, want to stay insular to keep your brainwashing clean and intact with old ideas. That way you can freely fantasize on how "vital, unique, and resourceful" you all are (along with pipe dreams of heroism, saving the day, etc.) in some weird rationalization of "justifying" your hobby. You DO do that and get very angry when you don't get high-fives for your fantasyworld accomplishments. Your worry, not mine. "I'm not involved." :-) |
In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes: Now, now Steve, Christmas is coming, it's time to get into the spirit and put these sorts of things behind us. Motion from the floor: "I propose that we pass the hat to fund a gift certificate for Sweetums for two hours of couch time at his shrink's office." Shirley, you could almost pay for that time yourself...from the royalties of all those TWENTY-SIX PATENTS! :-) BWAYHAWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH... etc Do I hear a second? You just did. It went "tick." Your time is up. |
Dave Heil wrote in message ...
Len Over 21 wrote: Kellie no got "new" information. :-) Kellie wanna practice mental bullemia and barf up old postings. Len, one time is a mistake. The word is "bulimia". It's his latest non-invention. QRX,I'm Googling again . . . Dave K8MN w3rv |
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In article , Mike Coslo
writes: N2EY wrote: In article , Leo writes: On 5 Nov 2004 17:31:32 -0800, (Brian Kelly) wrote: snip Here, from the FCC R&O, is what that money bought us: "We similarly do not find that Amateur Radio frequencies warrant the special protection afforded frequencies reserved for international aeronautical and maritime safety operations. While we recognize that amateurs may on occasion assist in providing emergency communications," it described typical amateur operations as "routine communications and hobby activities." Oh oh. We've been caught. The FCC said the dreaded "hobby" word. Then we should grab that ball and run with it! Most of what goes over the internet is "routine communications and hobby activities" isn't it? Is surfing porn a hobby? I don't really know...... I suppose for some it is. Note, however, that the specific product named is produced by both amateurs and professionals. Jim, it looks like your "it's an avocation, not a hobby" arguement didn't work - they seem to have seen right through it and figured out what Amateur Radio is anyway! Nice try, though. I say we go forward on all fronts - hobby, avocation, public service, education, emergency comms, tinkering, advancing SOTA, etc. If they're gonna call us hobbyists, then make it a badge of honor, same as was done with the title "ham operator". Ain't nuthin wrong wit it bein a hobby! As long as the other aspects are not denied, I agree. And this goes beyond the BPL battle. Take CC&R struggles - would they try to ban other "hobbies"? I like the term "antenna-hugger" myself. Just watch which part you hug when its operating.... Yup. --- The phrase I object to is "*just* a hobby" - which denies the components of public service, education, etc. Correct. Calling it Just a hobby is like calling Nascar racing "just a bunch of people in cars. Self illuminated ignorance. Volunteer firemen aren't paid - does that make what they do "just a hobby"? How about people who do other forms of volunteer work? 73 de Jim, N2EY |
Len Over 21 wrote: In article , Mike Coslo writes: Isn't bullemia a cow with a nutrition problem? It would be a cow with no sex life. Sort of what happens to those who get off on fantasy dreams of hobbies being much more than hobbies...a vital need to the nation, etc. Go with the "creshendo" of noble, self-glorifying elevation of a fun hobby into something god-like in its majesty. ["creshendo - menudo without the guts" i.e., tripe ] So...have those "hobbyists on ice" settled their strike yet? :-) Not even close. The owners say they are losing less money the way things are now. I believe them. DOn't know if you watch hockey or follow it at all, but with the advent of widespread use of the neutral zone trap defense, coupled with the referees tolerating large scale clutching and grabbing, the NHL game has become more boring than soccer. Almost completely defense, and the only scoring comes from mistakes. Here is some hockey trivia. Last season, one of the Stanley cup final games was outdrawn by an episode of Spongebob Squarepants, the bizzarre cartoon. The NHL game is so boring that they have to change it, or they might as well close shop. NO one is watching. - Mike KB3EIA - |
Len Over 21 wrote: In article , Mike Coslo writes: The phrase I object to is "*just* a hobby" - which denies the components of public service, education, etc. Correct. Calling it Just a hobby is like calling Nascar racing "just a bunch of people in cars. Self illuminated ignorance. Tsk, tsk. Calling a PROFESSIONAL SPORT like NASCAR a "hobby" is like saying the Toronto Mapel Leafs are "just a bunch of skaters playing on ice." Umm, I wasn't calling it a hobby. The comparison was about mistaken assumptions. Hams do approach the ARS as a hobby. NASCAR is a bunch of people in cars. But they are both a lot more. Does ham radio go on strike? :-) [I could say "puck you" but that would elicit terrible gasps from the rever-end and the prussian schoolmaster...:-) ] Oh dear! NASCAR vehicles go faster on land than a certain CAP ace does in his lil two-seater (as "pilot in command") in the air. ? So...ham radio is a noble service to the people NOT IN ham radio? It is of vital need of the nation? It "educates" the masses on the theory and techniques of radio? Ham radio survives all disasters when all the infrastructure (commercial, professional built) "fails?" Why you waste those diatribes on me is one of lifes littel mysteries... 8^) Go for it. Fantasyland is without limits. That is in Lancaster PA if I'm not mistaken. - Mike KB3EIA - |
Len Over 21 wrote:
NASCAR vehicles go faster on land than a certain CAP ace does in his lil two-seater (as "pilot in command") in the air. ....not generally in the vertical plane. Dave K8MN |
Len Over 21 wrote:
In article , Dave Heil writes: Len Over 21 wrote: "Bringing up old postings again and again is just a mental form of bullemia." "Old-maid Jim is still into Googling bullemia syndrome..." Leonard, with due respect to your claimed professionalism as a writer, among other things, do you mean "bulimia"? :-) :-) :-) Your output is largely bull. Ergo, the new way to spell a word for your barfing. No problem. I always love watching you trying to tap dance your way out of an error. You have many errors and you spend a lot of time tap dancing. See ya, "Atila". Dave K8MN |
In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes: (N2EY) wrote in message .com... Alun wrote in message ... (Brian Kelly) wrote in I bought him a copy of the ARRL primer on ham radio, a copy of Passport and I need to dredge up a half-decent rcvr for cheap, toss some wire up and I'll see what happens. Christmas is coming, do it soon! Just don't get him some "worldband" POJ. . . . groan . . I am not a newbie to HF radios . . . So what are ya gonna get him? He might actually enjoy an older receiver (!) simply because it's different and not like everything else in RatShack. He sounds like the kind of kid who may be specifically attracted to the uniqueness of HF radio. Twelve-year-olds have two new hot buttons per day on average and I learned a long time ago to be very selective about financing those hot buttons. I'll *loan* him my TS-50 for awhile and see where he takes it. oh dear.... Hams still do *public service* comms (covers emergency comms and more) and also "advance the state of the art" in some ways. But that view is way too limited. The HF spectrum is a protected and regulated natural resource *THAT* is the hard sell to the antiscience folks. It's clear from the comments of BPL folks that they just don't understand HF radio. The "BPL folks" understood quite well what HF radio is all about going into the brawl. I don't think so. They set us up like ducks at a boardwalk shooting gallery which meshed beautifully with the agenda of the current "antiscience" leadership at the FCC and up. How? Their main game was how we supposedly all need broadband interent access so much that polluting the spectrum is the only way to get it. As if DSL, cable and other methods won't reach enough people soon enough. Point 2: The coming of BPL is exactly analogous to the timber companies clear-cutting anywhere they choose to do so. We're now in a position to get clear-cut ourselves, that's WRONG and it's coming from the same bunch of politicians who have the worst environmental record and big-biz "connections" in recent times. The environmentalists have beaten back the timber companies by leaning on the politicians and the courts and now it's our turn. Yup. And it's not just timber companies; all sorts of commercial interests want to "develop" the "wilderness". Remember Storm King. No. What matters is *now*, as in drilling in the wilderness preserves in Alaska. Good point. The fact that better technologies exist doesn't matter. Brian, you're right! The issue is not that we are relevant or up to date. We're not. I disagree! We *are* relevant, simply because we are "the public"! And we are as "up to date" as we need to be. Agreed here. Sort of. There should be a place for folks to enjoy radio for its own sake. As its own justification. That does *not* mean there should be no rules or standards, however. Yup. CB and FRS are parts of the same thing, Not really. Those services are meant for specific comms purposes. That's why they're channelized, used only approved equipment (in theory anyway) and are restricted in other ways (you're not going to work the world on FRS or CB). I realize that we're all "bred" to diss the CBers but when it comes to passing real emergency traffic to the authorities over the years they have us beat by probably a couple orders of magnitude. Maybe. So do cell phones in far less time. Point is, they're not meant to be "radio for its own sake". As far as "working the world" is concerned there was a local CBer here (recent SK) who worked all 22 Swiss cantons which I have yet to pull off for the Helvitia 22 award and the sucker had the cards to prove it. All of it with a big quad and a perfectly legal 10W type-accepted CB ssb xcvr. Yeah, I know, his DXing wasn't legal. Neither are Henry 3K amps and pairs of 4-1000As with their plate meter needles pinned to the right side. If somebody has to break the rules to do it, I'm not impressed. I agree with Alun, all not-for-profit personal comms bands need to fall under the same basic protective umbrella or we'll wind up in a divide & conquer maneuver. FRS and cb aren't protected either. First off, amateur radio is more than "just a hobby" because of the public service comms, technical innovation, and educational angles. We must not lose those things - we're adding, not subtracting. That's EXACTLY the kind of entrenched 'wayback thinking which needs to put behind us because most of it's BS. No, it's not. Just because amateur radio isn't part of every emergency and public service operation doesn't mean there's no contribution. Second, although millions of acres are preserved as parks in the USA, the total percentage of area in that system isn't very large, compared to how big the USA is. If we try to sell ham radio on the park idea alone, we might find ourselves with a tiny percentage of the spectrum we now have. There wouldn't be any need to do that sort of number-juggling, just edit the opening paragraphs of Part 97 and leave details like the band edges alone. That's a plan. Recreational technology usually doesn't exactly compare to commercial or military technology. Sailing ships are all but gone from the commercial shipping and fishing venues, Try commercial crabbing in the Chesapeake Bay with a power boat . . The exception that proves the rule. As I wrote: "All but gone". There are still some specialized uses. IIRC, the USN and USCG each have at least one sailing ship still on their rosters. Which has no bearing on what recreational boaters do. UPRR has two steam locomotives in operational condition, too - they even fire 'em up every year or two. and from the world's navies as well. But they are all over the place in recreation. . . . . Here's another concept to add to the pie - sports. Look at the London, Boston and New York City marathons (just to name three) - they involve the use of public facilities (roads) for a use that is basically recreational for 99+% of the participants. Some folks would rather that all those marathoners just run on treadmills rather than tying up traffic for a day. Radiosport is a big part of amateur radio. Now - how do we sell that package? The usual. Get the ARRL to support it and petition the FCC for an NPRM. Another good idea. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
Len Over 21 wrote:
In article , Dave Heil writes: Len Over 21 wrote: In article , (N2EY) writes: In article , (Len Over 21) writes: In article , (Brian Kelly) writes: (Len Over 21) wrote in message ... The parks argument is a good one. The spectum is a natural resource like the forest and the shoreline, and like those it shouldn't be for business use only. Thank you for saying that, Alun. Sincere thanks. About six years ago (or so) in here I tried to point out that there is a good analogue between the hobby of amateur radio and the national park service. The U.S. Park Service has a million acres (give or take) which is reserved for ALL the citizenry to enjoy for their recreation. You did? Google up the post for us, please, Len. Your experience in computer-modem communications should make that an easy task for you. Old-maid Jim is still into Googling bullemia syndrome, still trying to argue old, old postings all over again. And again. And again. :-) It is "bulimia", Len. Master the word and make it your own. :-) And all you want to do is tap dance out of this mess of your own creation. While I can still manage a time-step or two, this isn't a stage and you are not the audience...but you are rather the usher self-important and with a small flashlight, the one who keeps getting gum on his shoe soles. Actually, in the theater which is life, this is a stage and everyone who reads one of your posts is an audience. Sometimes the audience applaudes. Sometimes it throws tomatoes. Your latest attempts at claiming the idea of another as your own leave you covered in tomato sauce. You can't admit that a number of hams are involved in the public service aspects of amateur radio? NOT near enough to qualify for the self-glorifying political definitions in Part 97...and certainly not from the implied greatness and nobility written up by the league. Piffle! Any implied greatness and nobility comes from your "little man" inferiority complex. Part 97 says what it says. Feel free to take that issue directly to the FCC. I'm sure they'll accept your input, even if they don't act on it. The fact is, you just don't know much about it, do you? Three earthquakes, not just one. :-) But it is a matter of public record that radio amateurs participated. Names and calls have been published. How do you account for that? ARRL does the "publishing." Mass media it is NOT. I didn't write anything about the League being mass media, though by definition, QST fits the definition. It is read by a couple of hundred thousand people. There are city newspapers with a smaller circulation. There are articles in newspapers and magazines about the public service aspect of amateur radio. We have two local stations in this area. One or both generally have a feature story at least once yearly in their newscasts about radio amateurs in Field Day or radio amateurs in flood work or radio amateurs assisting in a search for a missing person. Wire services have "published" all that? I think NOT. Broadcast TV news "published" all that? I think NOT. You might think, but you don't know. Being "published" in the weekly Podunk Hollow 6-pager might satisfy legal necessities of "publishing" but the citizenry still doesn't know about amateur radio in detail. So having something published in a smaller newspaper doesn't meet your personal definition. Boy, life's tough, isn't it? Tsk. I was out there, not just "watching TV." Didn't see any "ham emergency" crews at the disaster centers. Maybe they were all home using CW on their rigs? [ "CW gets through when nothing else will...even without electrical power!" ] To make this clear for us, you were actually at the involved disaster centers, Len? All of 'em? So you know for a fact that no radio amateurs were involved in these earthquakes? I've been to more of them than you. :-) That wasn't the question. :-) Do I know "for a fact" there were no amateurs involved? No, because I don't read QST to find out. I accept your "no" but not for the reason stated. I was THERE. Nobody wearing a ham HT on their belt, nobody with a little callsign pin on, no mobiles parked. You were WHERE? Just the regular emergency workers plus the FEMA fly-away terminal showing TV with notes posted from anxious relatives. ....as far as you knew. I've seen no government nor NASA reports stating, "No radio amateurs were involved". I've seen no government nor NASA reports stating, "Radio amateurs were involved." If you've seen such a statement, provide the source so that Newington can be better educated. Why, I believe I'll do that, Leonard. Meanwhile you can brush up on events by looking at the stories at the following urls: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3077583/ http://www.issfanclub.com/modules.ph...rticle&sid=446 http://people.smu.edu/arc/shuttle.html http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...003/0001886975 http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/...eon062603.html http://www.prnewswire.com/gh/cnoc/comp/683158.html http://www.w4zt.com/paulharvey.html http://seti.sentry.net/archive/publi.../Feb/0017.html http://strand.sfasu.edu/shuttle/spshuttlenews.htm http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/0...prj.colu.wrap/ There are plenty of good citizens. Not all of them are equipped to to what radio amateurs did in this case. Why the dodge? "Dodge?" No Dodge, dude. Wife and I drive our Chevrolet. "dodge". Gosh, "Dave," I've seen no government nor NASA reports that ONLY hams are "good citizens" or that they were "the only ones equipped (with ham radio) to do the shuttle debris searching! Gee-willikers, Len, I wrote nothing about hams being the ONLY good citizens. I can say with a degree of confidence that hams were the only ones equipped (with ham radio). Was that in some sensitive (secret) government report that ONLY ex-State people were cleared to read? Was what? Pretending that amateur radio is "vital" is a lot of POLITICAL bull**** and you know it. What does it take for something to be "vital", Len? Constant reading and listening to the ARRL. :-) Whatsa matter? You couldn't think of an answer? That WAS the ANSWER, "Dave." Can't be, Len. You don't read QST or listen to the ARRL. The league is constantly self- glorifying itself and always depicts amateur radio as a vital necessity, etc., etc., etc. Massive sour grapes on your part. Live with it. Kellie wanna practice mental bullemia and barf up old postings. Len, one time is a mistake. The word is "bulimia". "Dave," your word is BULL. I don't have a word. The word you misspelled quite a number of times is "bulimia". That's NOT "weaseling out." That's just plain nuts, morseman. You just can't bring yourself to admit that the idea belonged to another, can you? I have plenty of analogues and admire those who are original, such as the comparison of the park system to setting aside spectrum for hobbyist activities. Yes, you admired the individual with the original idea so much that you decided to claim it as your own. YOU continually overlook the subject (the analogue) in a poor effort to attempt humiliation and defamation of a single poster as "your argument." That is faulty...but you seem to think you have NO faults. It is really difficult to stay on the subject, regardless of what it might be, for your fairly frequent errors and the inevitable newsgroup drift. The volume of your material in an attempted defense of the indefensible, says otherwise. You care. Tsk. I can't possibly "care." Yes, you care that you've been discovered claiming credit for taking the ideas of another and claiming them for your own. You said (repeatedly) I am "not involved." I've said all along that you aren't involved in amateur radio. You're certainly involved in a falsehood though. That's quite a rant, Leonard. There's a running QST item most months which is called "Media Hits". What kind of items do you think it highlights? Some squib in the Podunk Valley Hollow weekly 6-pager? A Mike Douglas TV show item? :-) Mike Douglas? Gee, you know as much about television as you do of Paul Newman movies. :-) Sorry, but the ARRL has been ineffective on getting mass media exposure to amateur radio for years...a whole half-century worth. The best it can hope for in "media hits" is to have CQ quote from the league website on something. All that stays INSIDE the ham media, doesn't venture OUTSIDE to where the politicians and the rest of the citizenry see news and events. Check out the urls I posted above. It looks like another case of Len Anderson not knowing what he's talking about. Some hams, like yourself, want to stay insular to keep your brainwashing clean and intact with old ideas. That way you can freely fantasize on how "vital, unique, and resourceful" you all are (along with pipe dreams of heroism, saving the day, etc.) in some weird rationalization of "justifying" your hobby. You DO do that and get very angry when you don't get high-fives for your fantasyworld accomplishments. What in the world are you going on about? Your worry, not mine. "I'm not involved." :-) Whaddya know! You got something right. :-) Dave K8MN |
(Hans K0HB) wrote in message . com...
(Brian Kelly) wrote How, exactly, would that work Hans? "Exactly" I can't give you (but you knew that anyhow). Ratz: Caught again . . . What I can give you is the proven notion that rewarding a certain sort of behaviour reinforces that behaviour. Agreed. End. 73, de Hans, K0HB w3rv |
N2EY wrote:
In article . net, "KØHB" writes: I believe that ARRL is wasting our money trying to be a political force, I disagree, Hans. Without some political action, ham radio will simply be legislated out of existence - eventually. We haven't gotten everyhting we wanted in the BPL fight. Neither did the BPL folks get everything *they* wanted. and (MORE IMPORTANTLY) that I think that the same money would be better spent on efforts which renewed the Amateur Radio reputation for technical innovation. Why can't there be money to do both? More important: What, exactly, should we hams be doing to renew that reputation? Funny you should ask! I have started to put together a "Near Space Science" group. I made initial calls for interest a few months ago, and made my pitch at our club meeting this week. The response was excellent, both at the meeting and afterward in private. At the moment it looks like we are going to make this happen. The likely scenario is that we will be working with local schools and other interested parties as well as among fellow Hams to launch experiments - both ARS and Educational - to the shores of space at around 100,000 feet above the earth, and then return them safely. This is a ripe field for experimentation and innovation. There are groups that are already doing this, and I see many innovations to be made, and improvements in technique that may be possible. The efforts are a public relations windfall if they are done correctly. It is a great way to get our name out in the community, both locally and nationally. This can all be accomplished for a surprisingly low cost. It is also a cross-interest project where people of many different interests and disciplines can contribute. It isn't just Hams. Outside of a gvt/university environment, Ham radio is the most practical way to go. We have licenses, methods, and applicable frequencies to use. Don't know if any of you folks in the PA and local area are interested in getting involved, but if so, we can discuss it here or by private email. So there you are Jim. A way to innovate, experiment, and have fun at the same time. Also a great P.R. effort that gets our message out to the public in a way that they can understand as a "hi-tech" endeavor. - Mike KB3EIA - |
KØHB wrote:
"Mike Coslo" wrote Twist? A large part of your post was quoting: The quotes (of the FCC officials) were selected to point out what the regulators seem to be expecting of us. I'll assume that you believe what you posted? (correct me if I'm wrong) Yes, I believe that is what those regulators said. I would hope you would set a good example by taking the lead. I did take the lead, by trying to point out what seems to be the prevailing regulatory attitude towards us. I further took the lead by pointing out that I feel the ARRL ought to shift some of the 'political' spending into programs which sponsor and nuture an attitude of tinkering and experimenting among amateurs. I've posted a project I'm getting started that will go a long way toward making us look good and helpful and relevant. Wanna help? - Mike KB3EIA - |
Mike Coslo wrote in message ...
N2EY wrote: In article . net, "KØHB" writes: I believe that ARRL is wasting our money trying to be a political force, I disagree, Hans. Without some political action, ham radio will simply be legislated out of existence - eventually. We haven't gotten everyhting we wanted in the BPL fight. Neither did the BPL folks get everything *they* wanted. and (MORE IMPORTANTLY) that I think that the same money would be better spent on efforts which renewed the Amateur Radio reputation for technical innovation. Why can't there be money to do both? More important: What, exactly, should we hams be doing to renew that reputation? Funny you should ask! I have started to put together a "Near Space Science" group. I made initial calls for interest a few months ago, and made my pitch at our club meeting this week. The response was excellent, both at the meeting and afterward in private. At the moment it looks like we are going to make this happen. EXCELLENT! The likely scenario is that we will be working with local schools and other interested parties as well as among fellow Hams to launch experiments - both ARS and Educational - to the shores of space at around 100,000 feet above the earth, and then return them safely. I presume you're talking about high altitude balloons. 100,000 ft = about 19 miles This is a ripe field for experimentation and innovation. There are groups that are already doing this, and I see many innovations to be made, and improvements in technique that may be possible. Let's see...radio, power, position reporting, remote control, tracking, launch, recovery... The efforts are a public relations windfall if they are done correctly. It is a great way to get our name out in the community, both locally and nationally. Yep. This can all be accomplished for a surprisingly low cost. It is also a cross-interest project where people of many different interests and disciplines can contribute. It isn't just Hams. Agreed! Outside of a gvt/university environment, Ham radio is the most practical way to go. Perhaps it could be done in cooperation with a university. A wide range of talents are needed to make such a project actually happen. For example: what permits are needed to legally launch a package weighing, say, 10 pounds? We have licenses, methods, and applicable frequencies to use. An important feature of the idea is that actually putting together a project would involve a lot of ingenuity and adaptation. For example, it occurs to me that it would be really neat to send aloft a GPS receiver as part of the package, which would then transmit the package's location to trackers below. Sample problem: how do we interface a GPS receiver to the transmitter system to do that? The end result might be called a "kluge" by some naysayers, but all that really matters is gettting the job done. Don't know if any of you folks in the PA and local area are interested in getting involved, but if so, we can discuss it here or by private email. Not to be a wet blanket, *but*... Here in the Philly metro area and other similar places, the question of coordination with air traffic control and the difficulties of tracking and recovery may preclude such experiments *in this area*. Still a good idea, though, and there may be nearby areas where such launches would be practical. So there you are Jim. A way to innovate, experiment, and have fun at the same time. Also a great P.R. effort that gets our message out to the public in a way that they can understand as a "hi-tech" endeavor. I *like* it! More important, it's exactly the sort of "PBI" thing Hans was talking about. And how about this: In order to make tracking, telemetry, and recovery easier, the instrument package could send periodic transmissions in Morse Code so that no special ground equipment would be needed for many functions. Any ham with a receiver for the band in question (and a little skill) could listen for the package, collect data, and send in reports. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
Mike Coslo wrote in message ...
KØHB wrote: "Mike Coslo" wrote Twist? A large part of your post was quoting: The quotes (of the FCC officials) were selected to point out what the regulators seem to be expecting of us. I'll assume that you believe what you posted? (correct me if I'm wrong) Yes, I believe that is what those regulators said. I would hope you would set a good example by taking the lead. I did take the lead, by trying to point out what seems to be the prevailing regulatory attitude towards us. I further took the lead by pointing out that I feel the ARRL ought to shift some of the 'political' spending into programs which sponsor and nuture an attitude of tinkering and experimenting among amateurs. I've posted a project I'm getting started that will go a long way toward making us look good and helpful and relevant. Wanna help? Maybe I'll bite. What's up? - Mike KB3EIA - w3rv |
Brian Kelly wrote:
Mike Coslo wrote in message ... KØHB wrote: "Mike Coslo" wrote Twist? A large part of your post was quoting: The quotes (of the FCC officials) were selected to point out what the regulators seem to be expecting of us. I'll assume that you believe what you posted? (correct me if I'm wrong) Yes, I believe that is what those regulators said. I would hope you would set a good example by taking the lead. I did take the lead, by trying to point out what seems to be the prevailing regulatory attitude towards us. I further took the lead by pointing out that I feel the ARRL ought to shift some of the 'political' spending into programs which sponsor and nuture an attitude of tinkering and experimenting among amateurs. I've posted a project I'm getting started that will go a long way toward making us look good and helpful and relevant. Wanna help? Maybe I'll bite. What's up? A near space Science project, such as I outlined to Jim, is a great way for Hams to get involved in a whole lot of fun, and a bit of work, but that can be fun too. Essentially we are building and launching "almost satellites". This is a balloon launched payload that heads to around 100,000 feet or so, conducting experiments for the duration. The experiments can be just about anything you can think of that can be done at that altitude. Most launches are multi-mission, with both science and Ham fun stuff on board. And of course the Ham fun can be scientific too. Hams have had fun ballooning for quite a while, but the advent of inexpensive GPS has changed things dramatically. We now fully expect to get our payloads back! That wasn't the case not too many years ago. The balloon is usually one of the latex weather balloon variety. Zero pressure balloons can be used too, but since they are designed to go up and stay up for a long time, that would be a more complex proposition. The payload uses Amateur radio for command and control. At the heart of the system is a GPS unit in conjunction with a packet radio. The telemetry data is sent back to earth and kept track of with a computer. The computer lets us know where the payload is, where it is going and how fast, and predicts the landing site. Oh, and it's freeware. In addition, the packet radio can send back other info as the mission may desire. The mission is often controlled by a microprocessor. To date, a lot of balloonatics use basic stamp controllers. Often a repeater is put on board. A small one has a lot of coverage at 100,000 feet! There is usually a VHF beacon, and occasionally a 10 meter beacon also, although that is not as prevalent as it was before GPS. The experiments vary. One of the favorite devices for the grade and middle school kids is something called a pongsat. This is an experiment that can be anything that will fit inside a ping-pong ball. Sounds weird, but there are plenty of small scale experiments that fit the bill... er, ping-pong ball. The balloon lifts the payload to the predetermined altitude, and bursts. The payload drops, and the Ham comms can continue during descent, although the first few moments after burst can be pretty weird as the payload often does some pretty strange gyrations until the parachute can grab some atmosphere. Drops like the proverbial rock. All this time, the GPS is keeping track of the whereabouts of the payload. Then at landing, it turns into a foxhunt as the hams use the beacon transmissions to find the payload. With the advent of us getting used to the software and the precision with which the GPS can determine the location, it is not too uncommon for the recovery team to witness the landing. Launch of one of these things does not take as much bureaucratic red tape as most people think. And it can be done for surprisingly little money. The people that are needed are of course Hams, and people with some programming experience. People with experience building things, and a meteorologist can't hurt! People that don't mind a drive on a weekend day to serve on the recovery team. Plenty of subteams, such as payload, publicity, science, visualization, integration, education liaison. Even people that might just want to feed all the other reprobates. This is real stuff. This might spark the interest in science in some youngster. And that is not only a career choice, but a service to the country. American scientists are becoming pretty rare. Its great publicity for Amateur radio. And we can innovate and experiment. Radio is a pretty mature science now. It's doubtful that any of us are going to invent a grand new communication scheme, or an antenna that does DC to daylight, or even one that is a whole lot better than what we have now. So What we need to do is to integrate what we have now, and do some innovation with it. We also need (or at least should) prove our worth to the community. That we can do it while having fun is a real bonus. - mike KB3EIA - |
N2EY wrote:
Mike Coslo wrote in message ... N2EY wrote: In article . net, "KØHB" writes: I believe that ARRL is wasting our money trying to be a political force, I disagree, Hans. Without some political action, ham radio will simply be legislated out of existence - eventually. We haven't gotten everyhting we wanted in the BPL fight. Neither did the BPL folks get everything *they* wanted. and (MORE IMPORTANTLY) that I think that the same money would be better spent on efforts which renewed the Amateur Radio reputation for technical innovation. Why can't there be money to do both? More important: What, exactly, should we hams be doing to renew that reputation? Funny you should ask! I have started to put together a "Near Space Science" group. I made initial calls for interest a few months ago, and made my pitch at our club meeting this week. The response was excellent, both at the meeting and afterward in private. At the moment it looks like we are going to make this happen. EXCELLENT! The likely scenario is that we will be working with local schools and other interested parties as well as among fellow Hams to launch experiments - both ARS and Educational - to the shores of space at around 100,000 feet above the earth, and then return them safely. I presume you're talking about high altitude balloons. 100,000 ft = about 19 miles Yup. This is a ripe field for experimentation and innovation. There are groups that are already doing this, and I see many innovations to be made, and improvements in technique that may be possible. Let's see...radio, power, position reporting, remote control, tracking, launch, recovery... Indeed. I noted in a reply to Brian which I moved to a subthread, that we are probably not going to be inventing as much as we used to, so it is now time to innovate. The efforts are a public relations windfall if they are done correctly. It is a great way to get our name out in the community, both locally and nationally. Yep. This can all be accomplished for a surprisingly low cost. It is also a cross-interest project where people of many different interests and disciplines can contribute. It isn't just Hams. Agreed! Outside of a gvt/university environment, Ham radio is the most practical way to go. Perhaps it could be done in cooperation with a university. A wide range of talents are needed to make such a project actually happen. Possibly. I would prefer to tap into talents of volunteers ( likely from the University!! ;^) ) but a direct collaboration would prove a little complex. For example: what permits are needed to legally launch a package weighing, say, 10 pounds? Permits, no. But there are some definite rules you have to follow. If you keep the payload at 6 pounds or below, the rules aren't too daunting. Its more of a "let us know" thing. We have licenses, methods, and applicable frequencies to use. An important feature of the idea is that actually putting together a project would involve a lot of ingenuity and adaptation. For example, it occurs to me that it would be really neat to send aloft a GPS receiver as part of the package, which would then transmit the package's location to trackers below. Sample problem: how do we interface a GPS receiver to the transmitter system to do that? Good thinking, Jim! Yup, that's what we would do. The GPS is interfaced with a Packet radio, and the data sent to earth to be processed by computer. One more use for a supposedly "dead" mode! The end result might be called a "kluge" by some naysayers, but all that really matters is gettting the job done. Kluge? It is a integration of off the shelf components applied in a novel way to achieve results that were very difficult even 10 years ago. But yeah, some will call it a kluge! Don't know if any of you folks in the PA and local area are interested in getting involved, but if so, we can discuss it here or by private email. Not to be a wet blanket, *but*... Here in the Philly metro area and other similar places, the question of coordination with air traffic control and the difficulties of tracking and recovery may preclude such experiments *in this area*. Still a good idea, though, and there may be nearby areas where such launches would be practical. Launches would likely be in Central PA, Just east of the Alleghenies. Landings would be in the eastern part. We will try to keep it within a hundred miles or so. One of the interesting parts of this is that the payload won't be spending all that much time where it could present a problem. So there you are Jim. A way to innovate, experiment, and have fun at the same time. Also a great P.R. effort that gets our message out to the public in a way that they can understand as a "hi-tech" endeavor. I *like* it! More important, it's exactly the sort of "PBI" thing Hans was talking about. And how about this: In order to make tracking, telemetry, and recovery easier, the instrument package could send periodic transmissions in Morse Code so that no special ground equipment would be needed for many functions. Any ham with a receiver for the band in question (and a little skill) could listen for the package, collect data, and send in reports. That is certainly a part of the package. The location beacon transmits to the hunters, and of course if the payload goes off course, having local hams get a fix is a big help. I want to get some HF experiments going on some of the flights. Not sure exactly what yet. BUt I can see this has you thinking! |
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In article , Mike Coslo
writes: Brian Kelly wrote: Mike Coslo wrote in message ... KØHB wrote: "Mike Coslo" wrote Twist? A large part of your post was quoting: The quotes (of the FCC officials) were selected to point out what the regulators seem to be expecting of us. I'll assume that you believe what you posted? (correct me if I'm wrong) Yes, I believe that is what those regulators said. I would hope you would set a good example by taking the lead. I did take the lead, by trying to point out what seems to be the prevailing regulatory attitude towards us. I further took the lead by pointing out that I feel the ARRL ought to shift some of the 'political' spending into programs which sponsor and nuture an attitude of tinkering and experimenting among amateurs. I've posted a project I'm getting started that will go a long way toward making us look good and helpful and relevant. Wanna help? Maybe I'll bite. What's up? A near space Science project, such as I outlined to Jim, is a great way for Hams to get involved in a whole lot of fun, and a bit of work, but that can be fun too. Essentially we are building and launching "almost satellites". This is a balloon launched payload that heads to around 100,000 feet or so, conducting experiments for the duration. Have you looked at Federal Air Regulations in regard to such high altitudes? This isn't like hot-air ballooning at low altitudes where manned free balloons have rights of way over all others. Back in the 60s the weather folks used to loft a quarter million or so weather balloons per year...with little transmitters in them and telemetry done with extremely low-cost electronics. Good example of doing things simply and for low cost per launch. The experiments can be just about anything you can think of that can be done at that altitude. Most launches are multi-mission, with both science and Ham fun stuff on board. And of course the Ham fun can be scientific too. Hams have had fun ballooning for quite a while, but the advent of inexpensive GPS has changed things dramatically. We now fully expect to get our payloads back! That wasn't the case not too many years ago. The balloon is usually one of the latex weather balloon variety. Zero pressure balloons can be used too, but since they are designed to go up and stay up for a long time, that would be a more complex proposition. You need to do some math on that before envisioning such a "low- cost" approach to get to 100 Kilofeet. Those 8-foot (typical) "weather balloons" aren't going to get up that high, not even a mass of them. You need to consult some (free for the asking) density values of the atmosphere and some back-of-the-envelope figuring first. Note that you have to allow for the lifting gas expansion with altitude. It is far from the same at 100 kilofeet versus sea level. The payload uses Amateur radio for command and control. At the heart of the system is a GPS unit in conjunction with a packet radio. The telemetry data is sent back to earth and kept track of with a computer. The computer lets us know where the payload is, where it is going and how fast, and predicts the landing site. Oh, and it's freeware. That's going to be a minor cost item. As you will find out, the balloon structure, its support infrastructure, and lifting gas will cost more than you think.. In addition, the packet radio can send back other info as the mission may desire. The mission is often controlled by a microprocessor. To date, a lot of balloonatics use basic stamp controllers. Often a repeater is put on board. A small one has a lot of coverage at 100,000 feet! There is usually a VHF beacon, and occasionally a 10 meter beacon also, although that is not as prevalent as it was before GPS. Two words: Payload weight. You can't get up in the blue sky with lack-of-detail blue sky ideas. If it were that easy, lots and lots of folks would have done so a half century ago. The experiments vary. One of the favorite devices for the grade and middle school kids is something called a pongsat. This is an experiment that can be anything that will fit inside a ping-pong ball. Sounds weird, but there are plenty of small scale experiments that fit the bill... er, ping-pong ball. The balloon lifts the payload to the predetermined altitude, and bursts. The payload drops, and the Ham comms can continue during descent, although the first few moments after burst can be pretty weird as the payload often does some pretty strange gyrations until the parachute can grab some atmosphere. Drops like the proverbial rock. All this time, the GPS is keeping track of the whereabouts of the payload. Then at landing, it turns into a foxhunt as the hams use the beacon transmissions to find the payload. With the advent of us getting used to the software and the precision with which the GPS can determine the location, it is not too uncommon for the recovery team to witness the landing. Launch of one of these things does not take as much bureaucratic red tape as most people think. You've done that? You are going to the edge of the stratosphere and think you can do so freely? Ain't quite that easy. And it can be done for surprisingly little money. "Surprisingly little" is a highly subjective term. Real projects have quite objective, finite budgets. The people that are needed are of course Hams, and people with some programming experience. People with experience building things, and a meteorologist can't hurt! People that don't mind a drive on a weekend day to serve on the recovery team. Plenty of subteams, such as payload, publicity, science, visualization, integration, education liaison. Even people that might just want to feed all the other reprobates. Sounds like you've already filled the "executive" position. :-) This is real stuff. This might spark the interest in science in some youngster. And that is not only a career choice, but a service to the country. American scientists are becoming pretty rare. "Becoming pretty rare?" Not quite as any visit to academia will show but feel free to get opinionated. Its great publicity for Amateur radio. It will get ham radio noticed, but what is written up by journalists may not be what you expect. Free ballooning has been going in the USA since 9 January 1793, the first American flight by Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard, lifting off from the Walnut Street Prison in colonial Philadelphia. That was witnessed by none other than President Washington. [from "Lighter Than Air Flight" by Lt. Col. C. V. Glines, USAF, Franklin Watts Inc., NYC, 1965, data from pp 29-35] That's over two centuries of time... And we can innovate and experiment. Radio is a pretty mature science now. It's doubtful that any of us are going to invent a grand new communication scheme, or an antenna that does DC to daylight, or even one that is a whole lot better than what we have now. So What we need to do is to integrate what we have now, and do some innovation with it. We also need (or at least should) prove our worth to the community. That we can do it while having fun is a real bonus. You can have all your innovative fun doing many, many things. Until you find out what helium costs to lift the total balloon (the balloon itself, its payload, its carrying structure, its all going to be a pipe dream having no more basis than enthusiasm. Check out the prices for helium with a gas supplier, plus what it takes to haul to HEAVY gas cylinders to a launch area, plus the metering system plus the filling system plus whatever else. All that after you've investigated what the actual lifting capacity will be in terms of ounces per cubic feet of balloon. [I said ounces, not pounds...lighter than air does not mean negative weight] You could get "efficiency" by going for hydrogen gas...which is offset by very direct DANGER from many and varied sources. Still going for 100,000 foot altitude? Start thinking in terms of the balloon exapanding to something on the order of EIGHT times in size at altitude maximum. That's visible on some of the high altitude research balloon flights of the 1960s using lots and lots of plastic sheet for balloon material. Your project may need a virgin...such as Richard Branson...to help start it off. Now, if you are REALLY thinking about this whole thing, look into "Project STAR" and a little thing like a model airplane that crossed the Atlantic (from Newfoundland to the Irish coast) during the 38 hours in August 9, 10, and 11, 2003. Laugh all you want but a few guys from around DC managed to do that through GPS guidance on board as an autopilot. You can read about it at http://tam.plannet21.com/index.htm Pictures and stuff to guide you even if you are not into model flying. 38 hours (approx) of powered flight using only 5.5 pounds of fuel, flight path of 1882 miles. Radio control only for take off and climb- out, then landing in Ireland...the rest entirely on "autopilot." It had some means of reporting its position to earth via satellites. That alone would be of interest to anything else involving GPS location or guidance. Search around on the huge NASA website for atmospheric info, especially for density versus height. You could do an approximate curve of payload + balloon weight versus cost of helium in hundreds of cubic feet to whatever altitude limit. That will give you some realistic viewing into feasibility of it all. |
Len Over 21 wrote: In article , Mike Coslo writes: Brian Kelly wrote: Mike Coslo wrote in message ... KØHB wrote: "Mike Coslo" wrote Twist? A large part of your post was quoting: The quotes (of the FCC officials) were selected to point out what the regulators seem to be expecting of us. I'll assume that you believe what you posted? (correct me if I'm wrong) Yes, I believe that is what those regulators said. I would hope you would set a good example by taking the lead. I did take the lead, by trying to point out what seems to be the prevailing regulatory attitude towards us. I further took the lead by pointing out that I feel the ARRL ought to shift some of the 'political' spending into programs which sponsor and nuture an attitude of tinkering and experimenting among amateurs. I've posted a project I'm getting started that will go a long way toward making us look good and helpful and relevant. Wanna help? Maybe I'll bite. What's up? A near space Science project, such as I outlined to Jim, is a great way for Hams to get involved in a whole lot of fun, and a bit of work, but that can be fun too. Essentially we are building and launching "almost satellites". This is a balloon launched payload that heads to around 100,000 feet or so, conducting experiments for the duration. Have you looked at Federal Air Regulations in regard to such high altitudes? This isn't like hot-air ballooning at low altitudes where manned free balloons have rights of way over all others. Yes, I have. They are surprisingly accommodating. Back in the 60s the weather folks used to loft a quarter million or so weather balloons per year...with little transmitters in them and telemetry done with extremely low-cost electronics. Good example of doing things simply and for low cost per launch. And they still are. One big difference is that they don't attempt to get their payloads back. They do have a return address on them, and there is about a 20 percent return rate. That surprised me a bit. The experiments can be just about anything you can think of that can be done at that altitude. Most launches are multi-mission, with both science and Ham fun stuff on board. And of course the Ham fun can be scientific too. Hams have had fun ballooning for quite a while, but the advent of inexpensive GPS has changed things dramatically. We now fully expect to get our payloads back! That wasn't the case not too many years ago. The balloon is usually one of the latex weather balloon variety. Zero pressure balloons can be used too, but since they are designed to go up and stay up for a long time, that would be a more complex proposition. You need to do some math on that before envisioning such a "low- cost" approach to get to 100 Kilofeet. Those 8-foot (typical) "weather balloons" aren't going to get up that high, not even a mass of them. Really? You need to consult some (free for the asking) density values of the atmosphere and some back-of-the-envelope figuring first. Note that you have to allow for the lifting gas expansion with altitude. It is far from the same at 100 kilofeet versus sea level. The payload uses Amateur radio for command and control. At the heart of the system is a GPS unit in conjunction with a packet radio. The telemetry data is sent back to earth and kept track of with a computer. The computer lets us know where the payload is, where it is going and how fast, and predicts the landing site. Oh, and it's freeware. That's going to be a minor cost item. As you will find out, the balloon structure, its support infrastructure, and lifting gas will cost more than you think.. Everything always costs more than we think! 8^) In addition, the packet radio can send back other info as the mission may desire. The mission is often controlled by a microprocessor. To date, a lot of balloonatics use basic stamp controllers. Often a repeater is put on board. A small one has a lot of coverage at 100,000 feet! There is usually a VHF beacon, and occasionally a 10 meter beacon also, although that is not as prevalent as it was before GPS. Two words: Payload weight. You can't get up in the blue sky with lack-of-detail blue sky ideas. Quite seriously, I was making a mini pitch here on the newsgroup. To think that I gave the entirety of my knowledge on the subject is, well, wrong. If it were that easy, lots and lots of folks would have done so a half century ago. Back when we had those coal burnin' GPS satellites! The experiments vary. One of the favorite devices for the grade and middle school kids is something called a pongsat. This is an experiment that can be anything that will fit inside a ping-pong ball. Sounds weird, but there are plenty of small scale experiments that fit the bill... er, ping-pong ball. The balloon lifts the payload to the predetermined altitude, and bursts. The payload drops, and the Ham comms can continue during descent, although the first few moments after burst can be pretty weird as the payload often does some pretty strange gyrations until the parachute can grab some atmosphere. Drops like the proverbial rock. All this time, the GPS is keeping track of the whereabouts of the payload. Then at landing, it turns into a foxhunt as the hams use the beacon transmissions to find the payload. With the advent of us getting used to the software and the precision with which the GPS can determine the location, it is not too uncommon for the recovery team to witness the landing. Launch of one of these things does not take as much bureaucratic red tape as most people think. You've done that? You are going to the edge of the stratosphere and think you can do so freely? Ain't quite that easy. With all due respect: http://www.eoss.org/faq/faa_liaison.htm Could you cite where you got your information? And it can be done for surprisingly little money. "Surprisingly little" is a highly subjective term. Real projects have quite objective, finite budgets. And you expect me to post my budget here? "Suprisingly little" is precise enough for general notes in here. The people that are needed are of course Hams, and people with some programming experience. People with experience building things, and a meteorologist can't hurt! People that don't mind a drive on a weekend day to serve on the recovery team. Plenty of subteams, such as payload, publicity, science, visualization, integration, education liaison. Even people that might just want to feed all the other reprobates. Sounds like you've already filled the "executive" position. :-) Yes I have. I do this kind of stuff. Some years ago, I organized and pulled off one of the premier star parties in the Northeast. That actually took much more red tape than this project. The party is still going on, although under the new management, it is not as profitable, despite growing numbers of attendees. I like organizing groups of people that share a common task. Wanna help? This is real stuff. This might spark the interest in science in some youngster. And that is not only a career choice, but a service to the country. American scientists are becoming pretty rare. "Becoming pretty rare?" Not quite as any visit to academia will show but feel free to get opinionated. Heh, Better check the citizenship of those engineering students. Its great publicity for Amateur radio. It will get ham radio noticed, but what is written up by journalists may not be what you expect. Free ballooning has been going in the USA since 9 January 1793, the first American flight by Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard, lifting off from the Walnut Street Prison in colonial Philadelphia. That was witnessed by none other than President Washington. [from "Lighter Than Air Flight" by Lt. Col. C. V. Glines, USAF, Franklin Watts Inc., NYC, 1965, data from pp 29-35] That's over two centuries of time... Thanks for the balloon history. And we can innovate and experiment. Radio is a pretty mature science now. It's doubtful that any of us are going to invent a grand new communication scheme, or an antenna that does DC to daylight, or even one that is a whole lot better than what we have now. So What we need to do is to integrate what we have now, and do some innovation with it. We also need (or at least should) prove our worth to the community. That we can do it while having fun is a real bonus. You can have all your innovative fun doing many, many things. Until you find out what helium costs to lift the total balloon (the balloon itself, its payload, its carrying structure, its all going to be a pipe dream having no more basis than enthusiasm. Wanna help? Check out the prices for helium with a gas supplier, plus what it takes to haul to HEAVY gas cylinders to a launch area, plus the metering system plus the filling system plus whatever else. All that after you've investigated what the actual lifting capacity will be in terms of ounces per cubic feet of balloon. [I said ounces, not pounds...lighter than air does not mean negative weight] You could get "efficiency" by going for hydrogen gas...which is offset by very direct DANGER from many and varied sources. Still going for 100,000 foot altitude? Start thinking in terms of the balloon exapanding to something on the order of EIGHT times in size at altitude maximum. That's visible on some of the high altitude research balloon flights of the 1960s using lots and lots of plastic sheet for balloon material. Your project may need a virgin...such as Richard Branson...to help start it off. http://www.eoss.org/index.html http://www.amsat.org/amsat/balloons/balloon.htm http://www.ansr.org/html/index.php http://frodo.bruderhof.com/hambone/index.html http://habitat.netlab.org/index.shtml http://www.qsl.net/k8uo/UM201.htm http://balloons.aero.und.edu/habp/ http://www.tc.umn.edu/~tjs//Balloons.html http://cosmos.aeem.iastate.edu/HABET/ http://www.nstar.org/ Read the links (just a suggestion - I know you don't like being told what to do) Check out the links. Do a little homework. I usually give you a pass on most things. But dozens of amateurs are doing this. Now, with real payloads, inexpensively. You are very, very wrong. Rest snipped - Mike KB3EIA - |
Mike Coslo wrote:
Lenover21 wrote in part: Still going for 100,000 foot altitude? Start thinking in terms of the balloon exapanding to something on the order of EIGHT times in size at altitude maximum. That's visible on some of the high altitude research balloon flights of the 1960s using lots and lots of plastic sheet for balloon material. An addition to my earlier post..... Those large plastic balloons are not used solely to hold large amounts of helium, although they do. The zero pressure balloons, as they are called, are actually open at the bottom. As the helium expands with the increase in height, the balloon eventually reaches an equilibrium point where some of the helium escapes through the bottom vent. At this point, the balloon levels off, maintaining roughly the same altitude. These balloons are used for large payloads, and/or a payload that is designed to stay up for a relatively long time. Quite a simple and elegant solution. For the purpose of Amateur near space science, we usually want to get the payload up and down in a fairly short order. Latex balloons are the ticket for that. - Mike KB3EIA - |
(Len Over 21) wrote in message ...
In article , Mike Coslo writes: Brian Kelly wrote: Mike Coslo wrote in message ... KØHB wrote: "Mike Coslo" wrote Twist? A large part of your post was quoting: The quotes (of the FCC officials) were selected to point out what the regulators seem to be expecting of us. I'll assume that you believe what you posted? (correct me if I'm wrong) Yes, I believe that is what those regulators said. I would hope you would set a good example by taking the lead. I did take the lead, by trying to point out what seems to be the prevailing regulatory attitude towards us. I further took the lead by pointing out that I feel the ARRL ought to shift some of the 'political' spending into programs which sponsor and nuture an attitude of tinkering and experimenting among amateurs. I've posted a project I'm getting started that will go a long way toward making us look good and helpful and relevant. Wanna help? Maybe I'll bite. What's up? A near space Science project, such as I outlined to Jim, is a great way for Hams to get involved in a whole lot of fun, and a bit of work, but that can be fun too. Essentially we are building and launching "almost satellites". This is a balloon launched payload that heads to around 100,000 feet or so, conducting experiments for the duration. Have you looked at Federal Air Regulations in regard to such high altitudes? This isn't like hot-air ballooning at low altitudes where manned free balloons have rights of way over all others. They need a way to burst the balloon on command (i.e., nichrome wire wrapped around the balloon plug, a receiver, and a battery), metallized RADAR reflectors on the instrument chain, and FAA clearance to launch. Back in the 60s the weather folks used to loft a quarter million or so weather balloons per year...with little transmitters in them and telemetry done with extremely low-cost electronics. Good example of doing things simply and for low cost per launch. They still do. It is called a rawindsonde and the rawin observations are transmitted over the weather networks and shared worldwide. These ballons often reach 10MB, but the payload is much smaller than most EOS amateur projects. The experiments can be just about anything you can think of that can be done at that altitude. Most launches are multi-mission, with both science and Ham fun stuff on board. And of course the Ham fun can be scientific too. Hams have had fun ballooning for quite a while, but the advent of inexpensive GPS has changed things dramatically. We now fully expect to get our payloads back! That wasn't the case not too many years ago. The balloon is usually one of the latex weather balloon variety. Zero pressure balloons can be used too, but since they are designed to go up and stay up for a long time, that would be a more complex proposition. You need to do some math on that before envisioning such a "low- cost" approach to get to 100 Kilofeet. Those 8-foot (typical) "weather balloons" aren't going to get up that high, not even a mass of them. You need to consult some (free for the asking) density values of the atmosphere and some back-of-the-envelope figuring first. Note that you have to allow for the lifting gas expansion with altitude. It is far from the same at 100 kilofeet versus sea level. Lots of expansion. The payload uses Amateur radio for command and control. At the heart of the system is a GPS unit in conjunction with a packet radio. The telemetry data is sent back to earth and kept track of with a computer. The computer lets us know where the payload is, where it is going and how fast, and predicts the landing site. Oh, and it's freeware. That's going to be a minor cost item. As you will find out, the balloon structure, its support infrastructure, and lifting gas will cost more than you think.. It all adds up. Might be good idea to get a sponsor. In addition, the packet radio can send back other info as the mission may desire. The mission is often controlled by a microprocessor. To date, a lot of balloonatics use basic stamp controllers. Often a repeater is put on board. A small one has a lot of coverage at 100,000 feet! There is usually a VHF beacon, and occasionally a 10 meter beacon also, although that is not as prevalent as it was before GPS. Two words: Payload weight. You can't get up in the blue sky with lack-of-detail blue sky ideas. If it were that easy, lots and lots of folks would have done so a half century ago. And all of those gps, beacons, packets, thermistors, pressure transducers, and video cameras and ATV transmitters operate off of heavy batteries. Luckily the ascent and descent won't be that long, and the batteries can be scaled back from what is normally required with one caveat. You'll want the beacon to be operable for several days, if possible. The experiments vary. One of the favorite devices for the grade and middle school kids is something called a pongsat. This is an experiment that can be anything that will fit inside a ping-pong ball. Sounds weird, but there are plenty of small scale experiments that fit the bill... er, ping-pong ball. The balloon lifts the payload to the predetermined altitude, and bursts. The payload drops, and the Ham comms can continue during descent, although the first few moments after burst can be pretty weird as the payload often does some pretty strange gyrations until the parachute can grab some atmosphere. Drops like the proverbial rock. All this time, the GPS is keeping track of the whereabouts of the payload. Commercial grade GPS recievers are designed to not work above 60,000 feet. Crazy precaution against strapping one to a missile and using it as a guidance system. Then at landing, it turns into a foxhunt as the hams use the beacon transmissions to find the payload. With the advent of us getting used to the software and the precision with which the GPS can determine the location, it is not too uncommon for the recovery team to witness the landing. Launch of one of these things does not take as much bureaucratic red tape as most people think. You've done that? You are going to the edge of the stratosphere and think you can do so freely? Ain't quite that easy. And it can be done for surprisingly little money. "Surprisingly little" is a highly subjective term. Real projects have quite objective, finite budgets. The people that are needed are of course Hams, and people with some programming experience. People with experience building things, and a meteorologist can't hurt! People that don't mind a drive on a weekend day to serve on the recovery team. Plenty of subteams, such as payload, publicity, science, visualization, integration, education liaison. Even people that might just want to feed all the other reprobates. Sounds like you've already filled the "executive" position. :-) This is real stuff. This might spark the interest in science in some youngster. And that is not only a career choice, but a service to the country. American scientists are becoming pretty rare. "Becoming pretty rare?" Not quite as any visit to academia will show but feel free to get opinionated. Its great publicity for Amateur radio. It will get ham radio noticed, but what is written up by journalists may not be what you expect. Free ballooning has been going in the USA since 9 January 1793, the first American flight by Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard, lifting off from the Walnut Street Prison in colonial Philadelphia. That was witnessed by none other than President Washington. [from "Lighter Than Air Flight" by Lt. Col. C. V. Glines, USAF, Franklin Watts Inc., NYC, 1965, data from pp 29-35] That's over two centuries of time... And we can innovate and experiment. Radio is a pretty mature science now. It's doubtful that any of us are going to invent a grand new communication scheme, or an antenna that does DC to daylight, or even one that is a whole lot better than what we have now. So What we need to do is to integrate what we have now, and do some innovation with it. We also need (or at least should) prove our worth to the community. That we can do it while having fun is a real bonus. You can have all your innovative fun doing many, many things. Until you find out what helium costs to lift the total balloon (the balloon itself, its payload, its carrying structure, its all going to be a pipe dream having no more basis than enthusiasm. Check out the prices for helium with a gas supplier, plus what it takes to haul to HEAVY gas cylinders to a launch area, plus the metering system plus the filling system plus whatever else. All that after you've investigated what the actual lifting capacity will be in terms of ounces per cubic feet of balloon. [I said ounces, not pounds...lighter than air does not mean negative weight] You could get "efficiency" by going for hydrogen gas...which is offset by very direct DANGER from many and varied sources. Yikes! If they use the nichrome wire on the balloon plug trick... Still going for 100,000 foot altitude? Start thinking in terms of the balloon exapanding to something on the order of EIGHT times in size at altitude maximum. That's visible on some of the high altitude research balloon flights of the 1960s using lots and lots of plastic sheet for balloon material. Your project may need a virgin...such as Richard Branson...to help start it off. Now, if you are REALLY thinking about this whole thing, look into "Project STAR" and a little thing like a model airplane that crossed the Atlantic (from Newfoundland to the Irish coast) during the 38 hours in August 9, 10, and 11, 2003. Laugh all you want but a few guys from around DC managed to do that through GPS guidance on board as an autopilot. You can read about it at http://tam.plannet21.com/index.htm Pictures and stuff to guide you even if you are not into model flying. 38 hours (approx) of powered flight using only 5.5 pounds of fuel, flight path of 1882 miles. Radio control only for take off and climb- out, then landing in Ireland...the rest entirely on "autopilot." It had some means of reporting its position to earth via satellites. That alone would be of interest to anything else involving GPS location or guidance. Search around on the huge NASA website for atmospheric info, especially for density versus height. You could do an approximate curve of payload + balloon weight versus cost of helium in hundreds of cubic feet to whatever altitude limit. That will give you some realistic viewing into feasibility of it all. Sounds like fun. Dense air operations in the eastern states may pose a big problem. |
MassachutsusWilliam wrote:
(Len Over 21) wrote in message ... In article , Mike Coslo writes: Brian Kelly wrote: Mike Coslo wrote in message ... KØHB wrote: "Mike Coslo" wrote Twist? A large part of your post was quoting: The quotes (of the FCC officials) were selected to point out what the regulators seem to be expecting of us. I'll assume that you believe what you posted? (correct me if I'm wrong) Yes, I believe that is what those regulators said. I would hope you would set a good example by taking the lead. I did take the lead, by trying to point out what seems to be the prevailing regulatory attitude towards us. I further took the lead by pointing out that I feel the ARRL ought to shift some of the 'political' spending into programs which sponsor and nuture an attitude of tinkering and experimenting among amateurs. I've posted a project I'm getting started that will go a long way toward making us look good and helpful and relevant. Wanna help? Maybe I'll bite. What's up? A near space Science project, such as I outlined to Jim, is a great way for Hams to get involved in a whole lot of fun, and a bit of work, but that can be fun too. Essentially we are building and launching "almost satellites". This is a balloon launched payload that heads to around 100,000 feet or so, conducting experiments for the duration. Have you looked at Federal Air Regulations in regard to such high altitudes? This isn't like hot-air ballooning at low altitudes where manned free balloons have rights of way over all others. They need a way to burst the balloon on command (i.e., nichrome wire wrapped around the balloon plug, a receiver, and a battery), metallized RADAR reflectors on the instrument chain, and FAA clearance to launch. Much of this depends on the size of the payload. There are other, much more often used methods to burst the balloon at the desired altitude. Back in the 60s the weather folks used to loft a quarter million or so weather balloons per year...with little transmitters in them and telemetry done with extremely low-cost electronics. Good example of doing things simply and for low cost per launch. They still do. It is called a rawindsonde and the rawin observations are transmitted over the weather networks and shared worldwide. Multiple launches every day right in my neighborhood. These ballons often reach 10MB, but the payload is much smaller than most EOS amateur projects. 6 pounds is the magic number for the FAA. NOt a problem for one of those latex balloons. The experiments can be just about anything you can think of that can be done at that altitude. Most launches are multi-mission, with both science and Ham fun stuff on board. And of course the Ham fun can be scientific too. Hams have had fun ballooning for quite a while, but the advent of inexpensive GPS has changed things dramatically. We now fully expect to get our payloads back! That wasn't the case not too many years ago. The balloon is usually one of the latex weather balloon variety. Zero pressure balloons can be used too, but since they are designed to go up and stay up for a long time, that would be a more complex proposition. You need to do some math on that before envisioning such a "low- cost" approach to get to 100 Kilofeet. Those 8-foot (typical) "weather balloons" aren't going to get up that high, not even a mass of them. You need to consult some (free for the asking) density values of the atmosphere and some back-of-the-envelope figuring first. Note that you have to allow for the lifting gas expansion with altitude. It is far from the same at 100 kilofeet versus sea level. Lots of expansion. around 30 feet in diameter at burst! The payload uses Amateur radio for command and control. At the heart of the system is a GPS unit in conjunction with a packet radio. The telemetry data is sent back to earth and kept track of with a computer. The computer lets us know where the payload is, where it is going and how fast, and predicts the landing site. Oh, and it's freeware. That's going to be a minor cost item. As you will find out, the balloon structure, its support infrastructure, and lifting gas will cost more than you think.. It all adds up. Might be good idea to get a sponsor. In addition, the packet radio can send back other info as the mission may desire. The mission is often controlled by a microprocessor. To date, a lot of balloonatics use basic stamp controllers. Often a repeater is put on board. A small one has a lot of coverage at 100,000 feet! There is usually a VHF beacon, and occasionally a 10 meter beacon also, although that is not as prevalent as it was before GPS. Two words: Payload weight. You can't get up in the blue sky with lack-of-detail blue sky ideas. If it were that easy, lots and lots of folks would have done so a half century ago. And all of those gps, beacons, packets, thermistors, pressure transducers, and video cameras and ATV transmitters operate off of heavy batteries. Luckily the ascent and descent won't be that long, and the batteries can be scaled back from what is normally required with one caveat. You'll want the beacon to be operable for several days, if possible. The experiments vary. One of the favorite devices for the grade and middle school kids is something called a pongsat. This is an experiment that can be anything that will fit inside a ping-pong ball. Sounds weird, but there are plenty of small scale experiments that fit the bill... er, ping-pong ball. The balloon lifts the payload to the predetermined altitude, and bursts. The payload drops, and the Ham comms can continue during descent, although the first few moments after burst can be pretty weird as the payload often does some pretty strange gyrations until the parachute can grab some atmosphere. Drops like the proverbial rock. All this time, the GPS is keeping track of the whereabouts of the payload. Commercial grade GPS recievers are designed to not work above 60,000 feet. Crazy precaution against strapping one to a missile and using it as a guidance system. There are ones that operate above that altitude. Then at landing, it turns into a foxhunt as the hams use the beacon transmissions to find the payload. With the advent of us getting used to the software and the precision with which the GPS can determine the location, it is not too uncommon for the recovery team to witness the landing. Launch of one of these things does not take as much bureaucratic red tape as most people think. You've done that? You are going to the edge of the stratosphere and think you can do so freely? Ain't quite that easy. And it can be done for surprisingly little money. "Surprisingly little" is a highly subjective term. Real projects have quite objective, finite budgets. The people that are needed are of course Hams, and people with some programming experience. People with experience building things, and a meteorologist can't hurt! People that don't mind a drive on a weekend day to serve on the recovery team. Plenty of subteams, such as payload, publicity, science, visualization, integration, education liaison. Even people that might just want to feed all the other reprobates. Sounds like you've already filled the "executive" position. :-) This is real stuff. This might spark the interest in science in some youngster. And that is not only a career choice, but a service to the country. American scientists are becoming pretty rare. "Becoming pretty rare?" Not quite as any visit to academia will show but feel free to get opinionated. Its great publicity for Amateur radio. It will get ham radio noticed, but what is written up by journalists may not be what you expect. Free ballooning has been going in the USA since 9 January 1793, the first American flight by Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard, lifting off from the Walnut Street Prison in colonial Philadelphia. That was witnessed by none other than President Washington. [from "Lighter Than Air Flight" by Lt. Col. C. V. Glines, USAF, Franklin Watts Inc., NYC, 1965, data from pp 29-35] That's over two centuries of time... And we can innovate and experiment. Radio is a pretty mature science now. It's doubtful that any of us are going to invent a grand new communication scheme, or an antenna that does DC to daylight, or even one that is a whole lot better than what we have now. So What we need to do is to integrate what we have now, and do some innovation with it. We also need (or at least should) prove our worth to the community. That we can do it while having fun is a real bonus. You can have all your innovative fun doing many, many things. Until you find out what helium costs to lift the total balloon (the balloon itself, its payload, its carrying structure, its all going to be a pipe dream having no more basis than enthusiasm. Check out the prices for helium with a gas supplier, plus what it takes to haul to HEAVY gas cylinders to a launch area, plus the metering system plus the filling system plus whatever else. All that after you've investigated what the actual lifting capacity will be in terms of ounces per cubic feet of balloon. [I said ounces, not pounds...lighter than air does not mean negative weight] You could get "efficiency" by going for hydrogen gas...which is offset by very direct DANGER from many and varied sources. Yikes! If they use the nichrome wire on the balloon plug trick... Somone asked about that. I don't know the exact results. Hydrogen has to mix with air to be explosive. The pure stuff would burn with a red flame in a "pop" sot of mode. I'm not planning on using plain old H tho'. Still going for 100,000 foot altitude? Start thinking in terms of the balloon exapanding to something on the order of EIGHT times in size at altitude maximum. That's visible on some of the high altitude research balloon flights of the 1960s using lots and lots of plastic sheet for balloon material. Your project may need a virgin...such as Richard Branson...to help start it off. Now, if you are REALLY thinking about this whole thing, look into "Project STAR" and a little thing like a model airplane that crossed the Atlantic (from Newfoundland to the Irish coast) during the 38 hours in August 9, 10, and 11, 2003. Laugh all you want but a few guys from around DC managed to do that through GPS guidance on board as an autopilot. You can read about it at http://tam.plannet21.com/index.htm Pictures and stuff to guide you even if you are not into model flying. 38 hours (approx) of powered flight using only 5.5 pounds of fuel, flight path of 1882 miles. Radio control only for take off and climb- out, then landing in Ireland...the rest entirely on "autopilot." It had some means of reporting its position to earth via satellites. That alone would be of interest to anything else involving GPS location or guidance. Search around on the huge NASA website for atmospheric info, especially for density versus height. You could do an approximate curve of payload + balloon weight versus cost of helium in hundreds of cubic feet to whatever altitude limit. That will give you some realistic viewing into feasibility of it all. Sounds like fun. Dense air operations in the eastern states may pose a big problem. Should be a lot of fun. I would note that there are some of these projects going on in Mass. They do it. Although I did see one of their BalloonTrack screens showing a ocean landing east of Cape C - Mike KB3EIA -od! |
In article , Mike Coslo
writes: Essentially we are building and launching "almost satellites". This is a balloon launched payload that heads to around 100,000 feet or so, conducting experiments for the duration. Ever hear of this guy, Mike? http://www.centennialofflight.gov/es...ters_and_Dared evils/Kittinger/EX31.htm Or this woman: http://www.stratoquest.com/ Quite seriously, I was making a mini pitch here on the newsgroup. To think that I gave the entirety of my knowledge on the subject is, well, wrong. I kinda suspected that... Besides, the 100,000 foot level is a goal, not something done on the first flight. The experiments vary. One of the favorite devices for the grade and middle school kids is something called a pongsat. This is an experiment that can be anything that will fit inside a ping-pong ball. Sounds weird, but there are plenty of small scale experiments that fit the bill... er, ping-pong ball. The balloon lifts the payload to the predetermined altitude, and bursts. The payload drops, and the Ham comms can continue during descent, although the first few moments after burst can be pretty weird as the payload often does some pretty strange gyrations until the parachute can grab some atmosphere. Drops like the proverbial rock. YEEEHAAAHHHH!!!!! All this time, the GPS is keeping track of the whereabouts of the payload. Then at landing, it turns into a foxhunt as the hams use the beacon transmissions to find the payload. With the advent of us getting used to the software and the precision with which the GPS can determine the location, it is not too uncommon for the recovery team to witness the landing. Too cool. With all due respect: http://www.eoss.org/faq/faa_liaison.htm And it can be done for surprisingly little money. I suspect a lot of the cost if it were done by professionals would be in the form of payrolls and benefits... The people that are needed are of course Hams, and people with some programming experience. People with experience building things, and a meteorologist can't hurt! People that don't mind a drive on a weekend day to serve on the recovery team. Plenty of subteams, such as payload, publicity, science, visualization, integration, education liaison. Even people that might just want to feed all the other reprobates. And people who might just want to make a donation of money or hardware. Yes I have. I do this kind of stuff. Some years ago, I organized and pulled off one of the premier star parties in the Northeast. That actually took much more red tape than this project. ?? Why would that be? The party is still going on, although under the new management, it is not as profitable, despite growing numbers of attendees. http://www.eoss.org/index.html http://www.amsat.org/amsat/balloons/balloon.htm http://www.ansr.org/html/index.php http://frodo.bruderhof.com/hambone/index.html http://habitat.netlab.org/index.shtml http://www.qsl.net/k8uo/UM201.htm http://balloons.aero.und.edu/habp/ http://www.tc.umn.edu/~tjs//Balloons.html http://cosmos.aeem.iastate.edu/HABET/ http://www.nstar.org/ oh man....I'm gonna be online a while.... Good luck, Mike. If nothing else, a lot of hams will contribute a few dollars just to be a small part of it. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
Mike Coslo wrote in message ...
Brian Kelly wrote: Been busy around here for a couple days . . . I know there have been a number of such efforts over the years as published in QST but I don't remember the details. I've posted a project I'm getting started that will go a long way toward making us look good and helpful and relevant. Wanna help? Maybe I'll bite. What's up? A near space Science project, such as I outlined to Jim, is a great way for Hams to get involved in a whole lot of fun, and a bit of work, but that can be fun too. Essentially we are building and launching "almost satellites". This is a balloon launched payload that heads to around 100,000 feet or so, conducting experiments for the duration. The experiments can be just about anything you can think of that can be done at that altitude. Most launches are multi-mission, with both science and Ham fun stuff on board. And of course the Ham fun can be scientific too. Hams have had fun ballooning for quite a while, but the advent of inexpensive GPS has changed things dramatically. We now fully expect to get our payloads back! That wasn't the case not too many years ago. The balloon is usually one of the latex weather balloon variety. Zero pressure balloons can be used too, but since they are designed to go up and stay up for a long time, that would be a more complex proposition. The payload uses Amateur radio for command and control. At the heart of the system is a GPS unit in conjunction with a packet radio. The telemetry data is sent back to earth and kept track of with a computer. The computer lets us know where the payload is, where it is going and how fast, and predicts the landing site. Oh, and it's freeware. In addition, the packet radio can send back other info as the mission may desire. The mission is often controlled by a microprocessor. To date, a lot of balloonatics use basic stamp controllers. Whoa: I'm not trying to pee on your parade here Mike, honest, but let's take a look at a few immutable physical realities. Temperatures at 100,000 MSL generally range from -50ºF to -150ºF "depending". Lightweight (ounces) high-end ($500 class) consumer-level GPS receivers are rated to temps only down to غ-5ºF and 30,000 MSL max. altitude. Then comes the same kinds of limits on the rest of the electronics you're visualizing. How would engineer your way around these limitations on a freeware budget? Often a repeater is put on board. A small one has a lot of coverage at 100,000 feet! There is usually a VHF beacon, and occasionally a 10 meter beacon also, although that is not as prevalent as it was before GPS. The experiments vary. One of the favorite devices for the grade and middle school kids is something called a pongsat. This is an experiment that can be anything that will fit inside a ping-pong ball. Sounds weird, but there are plenty of small scale experiments that fit the bill... er, ping-pong ball. The balloon lifts the payload to the predetermined altitude, and bursts. The payload drops, and the Ham comms can continue during descent, although the first few moments after burst can be pretty weird as the payload often does some pretty strange gyrations until the parachute can grab some atmosphere. Drops like the proverbial rock. All this time, the GPS is keeping track of the whereabouts of the payload. Then at landing, it turns into a foxhunt as the hams use the beacon transmissions to find the payload. With the advent of us getting used to the software and the precision with which the GPS can determine the location, it is not too uncommon for the recovery team to witness the landing. From 100,000 the load could easily land downwind a hundred or more miles away from the launch site. Launch of one of these things does not take as much bureaucratic red tape as most people think. The bureaucrats ain't gonna allow a shot to 100,000 and back down anywhere east of the Mississippi for obvious reasons and sure as hell not in PA which leaves me out. You're talking a western badlands proving grounds level experiment. Good luck with the red tape they'll smack you with. How much would you budget for liability insurance? And it can be done for surprisingly little money. .. . . What's your definition of "surprisingly little money"? ..... from WHO? The people that are needed are of course Hams, and people with some programming experience. People with experience building things, and a meteorologist can't hurt! People that don't mind a drive on a weekend day to serve on the recovery team. Plenty of subteams, such as payload, publicity, science, visualization, integration, education liaison. Even people that might just want to feed all the other reprobates. This is real stuff. This might spark the interest in science in some youngster. And that is not only a career choice, but a service to the country. American scientists are becoming pretty rare. Its great publicity for Amateur radio. And we can innovate and experiment. Radio is a pretty mature science now. It's doubtful that any of us are going to invent a grand new communication scheme, or an antenna that does DC to daylight, or even one that is a whole lot better than what we have now. So What we need to do is to integrate what we have now, and do some innovation with it. We also need (or at least should) prove our worth to the community. That we can do it while having fun is a real bonus. Bag this 100,000 foot thing, you're 'way over your head with it. You're vision is doable assuming a more reasonable altitude goal as has already been demonstrated by others. I suggest you pick their brains and find out how they pulled it off and add some untried new twists of your own. - mike KB3EIA - w3rv |
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N2EY wrote: In article , Mike Coslo writes: Essentially we are building and launching "almost satellites". This is a balloon launched payload that heads to around 100,000 feet or so, conducting experiments for the duration. Ever hear of this guy, Mike? http://www.centennialofflight.gov/es...ters_and_Dared evils/Kittinger/EX31.htm Or this woman: http://www.stratoquest.com/ Good links. I wish here luck, and his web pages are fascinating. I knew of his record setting jumo, but the other info was new to me. What I like is that picture of him immediately after jumping off the platform. There's a pucker moment! Quite seriously, I was making a mini pitch here on the newsgroup. To think that I gave the entirety of my knowledge on the subject is, well, wrong. I kinda suspected that... Besides, the 100,000 foot level is a goal, not something done on the first flight. As likely as not, the initial flights will be tethered. Those will check out the functionality of the equipment. In fact, depending on the launch day conditions, we may want to peak at decidedly less than 100,000 feet. Altitude is not strictly the goal. The experiments vary. One of the favorite devices for the grade and middle school kids is something called a pongsat. This is an experiment that can be anything that will fit inside a ping-pong ball. Sounds weird, but there are plenty of small scale experiments that fit the bill... er, ping-pong ball. The balloon lifts the payload to the predetermined altitude, and bursts. The payload drops, and the Ham comms can continue during descent, although the first few moments after burst can be pretty weird as the payload often does some pretty strange gyrations until the parachute can grab some atmosphere. Drops like the proverbial rock. YEEEHAAAHHHH!!!!! All this time, the GPS is keeping track of the whereabouts of the payload. Then at landing, it turns into a foxhunt as the hams use the beacon transmissions to find the payload. With the advent of us getting used to the software and the precision with which the GPS can determine the location, it is not too uncommon for the recovery team to witness the landing. Too cool. Not even imaginable not too long ago. With all due respect: http://www.eoss.org/faq/faa_liaison.htm And it can be done for surprisingly little money. I suspect a lot of the cost if it were done by professionals would be in the form of payrolls and benefits... Big time. Volunteers are the heart and soul of the operation. People that simply find this sort of thing fascinating. The people that are needed are of course Hams, and people with some programming experience. People with experience building things, and a meteorologist can't hurt! People that don't mind a drive on a weekend day to serve on the recovery team. Plenty of subteams, such as payload, publicity, science, visualization, integration, education liaison. Even people that might just want to feed all the other reprobates. And people who might just want to make a donation of money or hardware. Yup. I even have a few HT's to donate to the cause. Bought cheap at hamfests. Yes I have. I do this kind of stuff. Some years ago, I organized and pulled off one of the premier star parties in the Northeast. That actually took much more red tape than this project. ?? Why would that be? The party is on state park land in the middle of a state forest. This meant permits and waivers. This meant The group had to be incorporated as a nonprofit corporation, with all the legal fees and paperwork involved with that sort of thing. Compliance with all the park regulations had to be made, with the exception of the exceptions that had to be granted, in order to put the thing on. Proofs of insurance of the correct kind had to be made. Electrical power had to be provided via another group that owned poles on the property, which ended up with me having to work with both the group and the local pupblic utilities. It took me the better part of a year to prepare just that - disregarding the details of the actual party. The party is still going on, although under the new management, it is not as profitable, despite growing numbers of attendees. http://www.eoss.org/index.html http://www.amsat.org/amsat/balloons/balloon.htm http://www.ansr.org/html/index.php http://frodo.bruderhof.com/hambone/index.html http://habitat.netlab.org/index.shtml http://www.qsl.net/k8uo/UM201.htm http://balloons.aero.und.edu/habp/ http://www.tc.umn.edu/~tjs//Balloons.html http://cosmos.aeem.iastate.edu/HABET/ http://www.nstar.org/ oh man....I'm gonna be online a while.... Good luck, Mike. If nothing else, a lot of hams will contribute a few dollars just to be a small part of it. Thanks Jim. The initial flights will probably be scaled down proof of concept ones. - Mike KB3EIA - |
Brian Kelly wrote:
Mike Coslo wrote in message ... Brian Kelly wrote: Been busy around here for a couple days . . . I know there have been a number of such efforts over the years as published in QST but I don't remember the details. I've posted a project I'm getting started that will go a long way toward making us look good and helpful and relevant. Wanna help? Maybe I'll bite. What's up? A near space Science project, such as I outlined to Jim, is a great way for Hams to get involved in a whole lot of fun, and a bit of work, but that can be fun too. Essentially we are building and launching "almost satellites". This is a balloon launched payload that heads to around 100,000 feet or so, conducting experiments for the duration. The experiments can be just about anything you can think of that can be done at that altitude. Most launches are multi-mission, with both science and Ham fun stuff on board. And of course the Ham fun can be scientific too. Hams have had fun ballooning for quite a while, but the advent of inexpensive GPS has changed things dramatically. We now fully expect to get our payloads back! That wasn't the case not too many years ago. The balloon is usually one of the latex weather balloon variety. Zero pressure balloons can be used too, but since they are designed to go up and stay up for a long time, that would be a more complex proposition. The payload uses Amateur radio for command and control. At the heart of the system is a GPS unit in conjunction with a packet radio. The telemetry data is sent back to earth and kept track of with a computer. The computer lets us know where the payload is, where it is going and how fast, and predicts the landing site. Oh, and it's freeware. In addition, the packet radio can send back other info as the mission may desire. The mission is often controlled by a microprocessor. To date, a lot of balloonatics use basic stamp controllers. Whoa: I'm not trying to pee on your parade here Mike, honest, but let's take a look at a few immutable physical realities. Temperatures at 100,000 MSL generally range from -50ºF to -150ºF "depending". Lightweight (ounces) high-end ($500 class) consumer-level GPS receivers are rated to temps only down to غ-5ºF and 30,000 MSL max. altitude. Then comes the same kinds of limits on the rest of the electronics you're visualizing. How would engineer your way around these limitations on a freeware budget? Good question. The payload package is often constructed of foam sheathing, such as used in housing construction. 3/4 or inch sheathing can be cut to shape, and sealed pretty easily. One of my research sources found that the heat generated by the electronic equipment nearly matched the heat lost during flight. The internal temperature actually rose by about a degree. I do plan on having an internal temperature sensor to get a knowledge base started of this issue. Often a repeater is put on board. A small one has a lot of coverage at 100,000 feet! There is usually a VHF beacon, and occasionally a 10 meter beacon also, although that is not as prevalent as it was before GPS. The experiments vary. One of the favorite devices for the grade and middle school kids is something called a pongsat. This is an experiment that can be anything that will fit inside a ping-pong ball. Sounds weird, but there are plenty of small scale experiments that fit the bill... er, ping-pong ball. The balloon lifts the payload to the predetermined altitude, and bursts. The payload drops, and the Ham comms can continue during descent, although the first few moments after burst can be pretty weird as the payload often does some pretty strange gyrations until the parachute can grab some atmosphere. Drops like the proverbial rock. All this time, the GPS is keeping track of the whereabouts of the payload. Then at landing, it turns into a foxhunt as the hams use the beacon transmissions to find the payload. With the advent of us getting used to the software and the precision with which the GPS can determine the location, it is not too uncommon for the recovery team to witness the landing. From 100,000 the load could easily land downwind a hundred or more miles away from the launch site. In some cases, yes. Recovery teams will be deployed somewhat east of the launch site. As the mission profile unfolds, they will head in the general direction of the predicted landing site. Launch of one of these things does not take as much bureaucratic red tape as most people think. The bureaucrats ain't gonna allow a shot to 100,000 and back down anywhere east of the Mississippi for obvious reasons and sure as hell not in PA which leaves me out. You're talking a western badlands proving grounds level experiment. Good luck with the red tape they'll smack you with. How much would you budget for liability insurance? You might want to read the links I provided to Len. There is a group in Mass doing this right now. NOAA launches many similar balloons a week in the middle of our town, which is about three miles away from the local airport. The local University often launches balloons from the building next to the one I work in. These are balloon/payload combinations of the same class. And it can be done for surprisingly little money. . . . What's your definition of "surprisingly little money"? ..... from WHO? It's all relative of course. Lets say there is an initial launch where everything had to be made. Balloon - cost will vary but typically a latex balloon might cost between 30.00 to 90.00. Depends on the weight of the payload. For helium you want to rent the tank and buy the helium, A large tank of helium, the 5 foot size is around 50.00. takes somewhat less than a tank to fill a balloon. Those are the recurring expenses. There are some other things, such as line to suspend the payload from the balloon. I'm not going to include that, but it will add a few dollars to the cost. (hopefully) non recurring expenses. If you opt for the insulation based payload box, you'll get a sheet for around 5 dollars. GPS - 100 to 200 dollars. Packet radio, 2 HT's Recovery beacon Basic Stamp Lithium battery pack (semi recurring cost) What do we want to do here? I have an HT capable of crossband repeating that I plan on donating to the cause. Cost me 30 dollars at a hamfest. If I planned on going new, I'd probably purchase a couple of the credit card type HTs. A small one is good, like the DJS-11T for 79 dollars or a dual bander like the DJC5T for 149 dollars. Basic Stamp controller will set us back around 50 dollars. There are also all the miscellaneous things that are involved in the project, wiring, circuit boards, connectors etc. All of this is not all that expensive at all. And there is plenty of room for scrounging to reduce costs. The people that are needed are of course Hams, and people with some programming experience. People with experience building things, and a meteorologist can't hurt! People that don't mind a drive on a weekend day to serve on the recovery team. Plenty of subteams, such as payload, publicity, science, visualization, integration, education liaison. Even people that might just want to feed all the other reprobates. This is real stuff. This might spark the interest in science in some youngster. And that is not only a career choice, but a service to the country. American scientists are becoming pretty rare. Its great publicity for Amateur radio. And we can innovate and experiment. Radio is a pretty mature science now. It's doubtful that any of us are going to invent a grand new communication scheme, or an antenna that does DC to daylight, or even one that is a whole lot better than what we have now. So What we need to do is to integrate what we have now, and do some innovation with it. We also need (or at least should) prove our worth to the community. That we can do it while having fun is a real bonus. Bag this 100,000 foot thing, you're 'way over your head with it. Yeah, I like swimming in the deep end. You're vision is doable assuming a more reasonable altitude goal as has already been demonstrated by others. I suggest you pick their brains and find out how they pulled it off and add some untried new twists of your own. The altitude is only a small part of the thing. I don't know if you looked at the links I posted for Len Anderson, but to put it simply, there are quite a few amateur groups doing this ALREADY. They are doing it in conjunction with Schools, sending their payloads up, bringing them back and recovering them. They are doing it from British Columbia to the Midwest to the East. They are doing it in Australia and in Europe. I'm not breaking any new ground with the idea of launching anything. My intentions are the research and payload integration. - Mike KB3EIA - |
N2EY wrote:
In article , (Brian Kelly) writes: Temperatures at 100,000 MSL generally range from -50ºF to -150ºF "depending". Lightweight (ounces) high-end ($500 class) consumer-level GPS receivers are rated to temps only down to غ-5ºF and 30,000 MSL max. altitude. Then comes the same kinds of limits on the rest of the electronics you're visualizing. How would engineer your way around these limitations on a freeware budget? Looks like a big challenge may be the engineering of an insulated airtight container that doesn't weigh much. Home sheathing insulation works like a charm, and is very inexpensive. Some people have used those cheap insulated picnic coolers. - Mike KB3EIA - |
Mike Coslo wrote in message ...
Brian Kelly wrote: Mike Coslo wrote in message ... Whoa: I'm not trying to pee on your parade here Mike, honest, but let's take a look at a few immutable physical realities. Temperatures at 100,000 MSL generally range from -50ºF to -150ºF "depending". Lightweight (ounces) high-end ($500 class) consumer-level GPS receivers are rated to temps only down to غ-5ºF and 30,000 MSL max. altitude. Then comes the same kinds of limits on the rest of the electronics you're visualizing. How would engineer your way around these limitations on a freeware budget? Good question. The payload package is often constructed of foam sheathing, such as used in housing construction. 3/4 or inch sheathing can be cut to shape, and sealed pretty easily. One of my research sources found that the heat generated by the electronic equipment nearly matched the heat lost during flight. The internal temperature actually rose by about a degree. I do plan on having an internal temperature sensor to get a knowledge base started of this issue. That "knowledge base" has existed going back to the 1800s. Save yourself from reinventing the wheel and sit in on a Heat Transfer 101 class and learn how to do it all by the numbers on the back of an envelope. From 100,000 the load could easily land downwind a hundred or more miles away from the launch site. In some cases, yes. Recovery teams will be deployed somewhat east of the launch site. As the mission profile unfolds, they will head in the general direction of the predicted landing site. That might work in Colorado and Arizona but here in the northeast corridor? Launch from State College PA and the thing drops on a low income housing project in Brooklyn? The bureaucrats ain't gonna allow a shot to 100,000 and back down anywhere east of the Mississippi for obvious reasons and sure as hell not in PA which leaves me out. You're talking a western badlands proving grounds level experiment. Good luck with the red tape they'll smack you with. How much would you budget for liability insurance? You might want to read the links I provided to Len. Reading all those would wear out Firefox. But I did scan enough of 'em to come to realize that you're correct about amateur balloons having reached 100,000 feet so I have to eat some words I posted. But you're still going to have to sort your way thru the the very fuzzy requirements of FAR 101 and I suspect you're seriously underestimating the amount of drudgery that's likely to take. I've dealt with the FAA types in the corridor over issues I had with FAR 103. They wound up arguing amongst themselves for months on end I and gave up trying to get any decisions or answers out of 'em. I also caught up with the fact that none of these missions can be insured. And you wanna drop objects out of the sky in an uncontrolled manner into spots unknown somewhere along the east coast? Fuhgeddit!! That we can do it while having fun is a real bonus. Bag this 100,000 foot thing, you're 'way over your head with it. Yeah, I like swimming in the deep end. Those of us who have a history of running multidisciplinary engineering projects usually know better . . . your mileage won't vary after you get some history behind you . . The altitude is only a small part of the thing. .. . . groan! . . . -100ºF is only a small part of it huh? I'm not breaking any new ground with the idea of launching anything. My intentions are the research and payload integration. Welp, good luck with it Mike - Keep us posted. - Mike KB3EIA - w3rv |
PAMNO (N2EY) wrote in message ...
In article , (Brian Kelly) writes: Temperatures at 100,000 MSL generally range from -50ºF to -150ºF "depending". Lightweight (ounces) high-end ($500 class) consumer-level GPS receivers are rated to temps only down to غ-5ºF and 30,000 MSL max. altitude. Then comes the same kinds of limits on the rest of the electronics you're visualizing. How would engineer your way around these limitations on a freeware budget? Looks like a big challenge may be the engineering of an insulated airtight container that doesn't weigh much. There's no new ground here. PAMNO (N2EY) wrote in message ... In article , (Brian Kelly) writes: Temperatures at 100,000 MSL generally range from -50ºF to -150ºF "depending". Lightweight (ounces) high-end ($500 class) consumer-level GPS receivers are rated to temps only down to غ-5ºF and 30,000 MSL max. altitude. Then comes the same kinds of limits on the rest of the electronics you're visualizing. How would engineer your way around these limitations on a freeware budget? Looks like a big challenge may be the engineering of an insulated airtight container that doesn't weigh much. There's no new graound here, it's more like a pile of labor than a real design challenge. If the instrument capsule is sealed at sea level and flown to 100,000 feet every six inch by six inch x by 3/4 inch thick patch of the foam board will have to survive a 470+/- pound outward load. Which I doubt will work. So the capsule should be sealed then evacuated to say 30,000 feet to get those stresses down. I can take it anywhere from here but I ain't. Sometimes dumb luck and enthusiasim gets the driveway mechanics there faster than applied physics does. 73 de Jim, N2EY w3rv |
Brian Kelly wrote:
Mike Coslo wrote: Yeah, I like swimming in the deep end. Those of us who have a history of running multidisciplinary engineering projects usually know better . . . your mileage won't vary after you get some history behind you . . Perhaps I should name the project "Icarus"? The altitude is only a small part of the thing. . . . groan! . . . -100ºF is only a small part of it huh? The atmospheric profile shows some interesting things. In the Troposphere, the temperature drops pretty steadily until around 10 Km, then it tends to stay pretty consistent until 20 Km. Above 20 Km, the temperature actually rises somewhat until around 50 Km, at which point it drops again until around 85 Km. At this point it becomes the Thermosphere, in which the temperatures rise dramatically - they can get from 500 to 1500 degrees C. The thermal profiles are by necessity very general. So if temps were a very big factor, I'd want to get the balloon through the 10 Km area pretty quickly, and up to around 30 and a half Km where it's a little "warmer". I'm not breaking any new ground with the idea of launching anything. My intentions are the research and payload integration. Welp, good luck with it Mike - Keep us posted. Will do. - Mike KB3EIA - |
In article ,
(William) writes: (Len Over 21) wrote in message ... In article , Mike Coslo writes: Brian Kelly wrote: Mike Coslo wrote in message ... KØHB wrote: "Mike Coslo" wrote Twist? A large part of your post was quoting: The quotes (of the FCC officials) were selected to point out what the regulators seem to be expecting of us. I'll assume that you believe what you posted? (correct me if I'm wrong) Yes, I believe that is what those regulators said. I would hope you would set a good example by taking the lead. I did take the lead, by trying to point out what seems to be the prevailing regulatory attitude towards us. I further took the lead by pointing out that I feel the ARRL ought to shift some of the 'political' spending into programs which sponsor and nuture an attitude of tinkering and experimenting among amateurs. I've posted a project I'm getting started that will go a long way toward making us look good and helpful and relevant. Wanna help? Maybe I'll bite. What's up? A near space Science project, such as I outlined to Jim, is a great way for Hams to get involved in a whole lot of fun, and a bit of work, but that can be fun too. Essentially we are building and launching "almost satellites". This is a balloon launched payload that heads to around 100,000 feet or so, conducting experiments for the duration. Have you looked at Federal Air Regulations in regard to such high altitudes? This isn't like hot-air ballooning at low altitudes where manned free balloons have rights of way over all others. They need a way to burst the balloon on command (i.e., nichrome wire wrapped around the balloon plug, a receiver, and a battery), metallized RADAR reflectors on the instrument chain, and FAA clearance to launch. The "command burst" receiver better have some secure coding to it or some jughead will burst-command it beforehand. A corner-cube reflector can be done with aluminum foil on a balsa wood frame...just three mutually-perpendicular planes in that corner cube, less than a foot in any dimension and still good for skin tracking. According to Mike, the FAA is "accommodating." :-) Back in the 60s the weather folks used to loft a quarter million or so weather balloons per year...with little transmitters in them and telemetry done with extremely low-cost electronics. Good example of doing things simply and for low cost per launch. They still do. It is called a rawindsonde and the rawin observations are transmitted over the weather networks and shared worldwide. These ballons often reach 10MB, but the payload is much smaller than most EOS amateur projects. I had one cluttering up the workshop since the 60s. Military type by the markings. One-shot battery, a simple aneroid bellows driving a printed-circuit rotary switch to kick in temp and moisture and light sensors, all of them variable resistive types that changed the rep. rate of a simple pulse modulator for the combination RCA pencil triode and cavity oscillator assembly and inverted ground-plane antenna. All of that went in the dumpster long ago except the translucent plastic sleeve on the Xmter assembly went two weeks ago (found it in a box of junk after sorting out the workshop). The experiments can be just about anything you can think of that can be done at that altitude. Most launches are multi-mission, with both science and Ham fun stuff on board. And of course the Ham fun can be scientific too. Hams have had fun ballooning for quite a while, but the advent of inexpensive GPS has changed things dramatically. We now fully expect to get our payloads back! That wasn't the case not too many years ago. The balloon is usually one of the latex weather balloon variety. Zero pressure balloons can be used too, but since they are designed to go up and stay up for a long time, that would be a more complex proposition. You need to do some math on that before envisioning such a "low- cost" approach to get to 100 Kilofeet. Those 8-foot (typical) "weather balloons" aren't going to get up that high, not even a mass of them. You need to consult some (free for the asking) density values of the atmosphere and some back-of-the-envelope figuring first. Note that you have to allow for the lifting gas expansion with altitude. It is far from the same at 100 kilofeet versus sea level. Lots of expansion. Tsk. Mike hasn't consulted a Standard Atmosphere table set yet. 100 kilofeet he will NEVER make with some surplus latex weather balloons. The payload uses Amateur radio for command and control. At the heart of the system is a GPS unit in conjunction with a packet radio. The telemetry data is sent back to earth and kept track of with a computer. The computer lets us know where the payload is, where it is going and how fast, and predicts the landing site. Oh, and it's freeware. That's going to be a minor cost item. As you will find out, the balloon structure, its support infrastructure, and lifting gas will cost more than you think.. It all adds up. Might be good idea to get a sponsor. Tsk. He gots the "recycling" spirit. Maybe he has a new way to "mine" helium out of the air or ground? [collectors around some heliarc welders might work? :-) ] In addition, the packet radio can send back other info as the mission may desire. The mission is often controlled by a microprocessor. To date, a lot of balloonatics use basic stamp controllers. Often a repeater is put on board. A small one has a lot of coverage at 100,000 feet! There is usually a VHF beacon, and occasionally a 10 meter beacon also, although that is not as prevalent as it was before GPS. Two words: Payload weight. You can't get up in the blue sky with lack-of-detail blue sky ideas. If it were that easy, lots and lots of folks would have done so a half century ago. And all of those gps, beacons, packets, thermistors, pressure transducers, and video cameras and ATV transmitters operate off of heavy batteries. Luckily the ascent and descent won't be that long, and the batteries can be scaled back from what is normally required with one caveat. You'll want the beacon to be operable for several days, if possible. Mere details. It is "doing science!" It is "inexpensive!" One-shot batteries are one source, but they ARE truly one-shot and can't be recycled afterwards. The experiments vary. One of the favorite devices for the grade and middle school kids is something called a pongsat. This is an experiment that can be anything that will fit inside a ping-pong ball. Sounds weird, but there are plenty of small scale experiments that fit the bill... er, ping-pong ball. The balloon lifts the payload to the predetermined altitude, and bursts. The payload drops, and the Ham comms can continue during descent, although the first few moments after burst can be pretty weird as the payload often does some pretty strange gyrations until the parachute can grab some atmosphere. Drops like the proverbial rock. All this time, the GPS is keeping track of the whereabouts of the payload. Commercial grade GPS recievers are designed to not work above 60,000 feet. Crazy precaution against strapping one to a missile and using it as a guidance system. No sweaty-dah. Seal the GPS unit in more balloon material, it stays in a local pressure regardless of the vehicle altitude. More or less. Then at landing, it turns into a foxhunt as the hams use the beacon transmissions to find the payload. With the advent of us getting used to the software and the precision with which the GPS can determine the location, it is not too uncommon for the recovery team to witness the landing. Launch of one of these things does not take as much bureaucratic red tape as most people think. You've done that? You are going to the edge of the stratosphere and think you can do so freely? Ain't quite that easy. And it can be done for surprisingly little money. "Surprisingly little" is a highly subjective term. Real projects have quite objective, finite budgets. The people that are needed are of course Hams, and people with some programming experience. People with experience building things, and a meteorologist can't hurt! People that don't mind a drive on a weekend day to serve on the recovery team. Plenty of subteams, such as payload, publicity, science, visualization, integration, education liaison. Even people that might just want to feed all the other reprobates. Sounds like you've already filled the "executive" position. :-) This is real stuff. This might spark the interest in science in some youngster. And that is not only a career choice, but a service to the country. American scientists are becoming pretty rare. "Becoming pretty rare?" Not quite as any visit to academia will show but feel free to get opinionated. Its great publicity for Amateur radio. It will get ham radio noticed, but what is written up by journalists may not be what you expect. Free ballooning has been going in the USA since 9 January 1793, the first American flight by Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard, lifting off from the Walnut Street Prison in colonial Philadelphia. That was witnessed by none other than President Washington. [from "Lighter Than Air Flight" by Lt. Col. C. V. Glines, USAF, Franklin Watts Inc., NYC, 1965, data from pp 29-35] That's over two centuries of time... And we can innovate and experiment. Radio is a pretty mature science now. It's doubtful that any of us are going to invent a grand new communication scheme, or an antenna that does DC to daylight, or even one that is a whole lot better than what we have now. So What we need to do is to integrate what we have now, and do some innovation with it. We also need (or at least should) prove our worth to the community. That we can do it while having fun is a real bonus. You can have all your innovative fun doing many, many things. Until you find out what helium costs to lift the total balloon (the balloon itself, its payload, its carrying structure, its all going to be a pipe dream having no more basis than enthusiasm. Check out the prices for helium with a gas supplier, plus what it takes to haul to HEAVY gas cylinders to a launch area, plus the metering system plus the filling system plus whatever else. All that after you've investigated what the actual lifting capacity will be in terms of ounces per cubic feet of balloon. [I said ounces, not pounds...lighter than air does not mean negative weight] You could get "efficiency" by going for hydrogen gas...which is offset by very direct DANGER from many and varied sources. Yikes! If they use the nichrome wire on the balloon plug trick... Hydrogen is a very efficient lifting gas. It CAN be generated by amateurs...chemistry amateurs. Getting into the balloon is going to be tricky. Still going for 100,000 foot altitude? Start thinking in terms of the balloon exapanding to something on the order of EIGHT times in size at altitude maximum. That's visible on some of the high altitude research balloon flights of the 1960s using lots and lots of plastic sheet for balloon material. Your project may need a virgin...such as Richard Branson...to help start it off. Now, if you are REALLY thinking about this whole thing, look into "Project STAR" and a little thing like a model airplane that crossed the Atlantic (from Newfoundland to the Irish coast) during the 38 hours in August 9, 10, and 11, 2003. Laugh all you want but a few guys from around DC managed to do that through GPS guidance on board as an autopilot. You can read about it at http://tam.plannet21.com/index.htm Pictures and stuff to guide you even if you are not into model flying. 38 hours (approx) of powered flight using only 5.5 pounds of fuel, flight path of 1882 miles. Radio control only for take off and climb- out, then landing in Ireland...the rest entirely on "autopilot." It had some means of reporting its position to earth via satellites. That alone would be of interest to anything else involving GPS location or guidance. Search around on the huge NASA website for atmospheric info, especially for density versus height. You could do an approximate curve of payload + balloon weight versus cost of helium in hundreds of cubic feet to whatever altitude limit. That will give you some realistic viewing into feasibility of it all. Sounds like fun. Dense air operations in the eastern states may pose a big problem. Not to worry. Air carriers are on the "Victor" ways above the max. balloon altitude. General Av types will be in the denser altitudes and props will chop it up nicely. :-) |
In article , Mike Coslo
writes: Len Over 21 wrote: Have you looked at Federal Air Regulations in regard to such high altitudes? This isn't like hot-air ballooning at low altitudes where manned free balloons have rights of way over all others. Yes, I have. They are surprisingly accommodating. "Accommodating" whom? You didn't sumarize, compose a precis or anything else. What does the FAR SAY? Back in the 60s the weather folks used to loft a quarter million or so weather balloons per year...with little transmitters in them and telemetry done with extremely low-cost electronics. Good example of doing things simply and for low cost per launch. And they still are. One big difference is that they don't attempt to get their payloads back. They do have a return address on them, and there is about a 20 percent return rate. That surprised me a bit. They are? How do you know? You need to consult some (free for the asking) density values of the atmosphere and some back-of-the-envelope figuring first. Note that you have to allow for the lifting gas expansion with altitude. It is far from the same at 100 kilofeet versus sea level. Welp, since you didn't really look, here's a capsule from an on-line calculator: At 1000 feet, temp 55.4 F, 14.17 PSI, density 1.1896 Kg/cubic meter. At 10K feet, temp 23.3 F, 10.11 PSI, density 0.9046 Kg/cubic meter. At 100K feet, temp -50.8 F, 0.1581 PSI, density 0.0167 Kg/cubic meter. Notice how the DENSITY drops off at a remarkable rate past 10,000 feet. [Density is going to be very important since it will determine the limit of buoyancy of the whole balloon] Two words: Payload weight. You can't get up in the blue sky with lack-of-detail blue sky ideas. Quite seriously, I was making a mini pitch here on the newsgroup. To think that I gave the entirety of my knowledge on the subject is, well, wrong. Tsk. I didn't see much of any "knowledge" displayed, or any sort of hard science. The Standard Atmosphere has been public for over a half century, most countries. While the 1976 model has been revised a couple times since, the basic data is mostly in refinement. If it were that easy, lots and lots of folks would have done so a half century ago. Back when we had those coal burnin' GPS satellites! Many, MANY balloons have been lofted (other than rawinsondes) BEFORE the precursor to GPS, NAVSTAR, was first launched. That was around 1971 or better than 33 years ago. Neither GPSS nor NAVSTAR nor GLONASS used "coal" to burn for anything. The experiments vary. One of the favorite devices for the grade and middle school kids is something called a pongsat. This is an experiment that can be anything that will fit inside a ping-pong ball. Sounds weird, but there are plenty of small scale experiments that fit the bill... er, ping-pong ball. The balloon lifts the payload to the predetermined altitude, and bursts. The payload drops, and the Ham comms can continue during descent, although the first few moments after burst can be pretty weird as the payload often does some pretty strange gyrations until the parachute can grab some atmosphere. Drops like the proverbial rock. All this time, the GPS is keeping track of the whereabouts of the payload. Then at landing, it turns into a foxhunt as the hams use the beacon transmissions to find the payload. With the advent of us getting used to the software and the precision with which the GPS can determine the location, it is not too uncommon for the recovery team to witness the landing. Launch of one of these things does not take as much bureaucratic red tape as most people think. You've done that? You are going to the edge of the stratosphere and think you can do so freely? Ain't quite that easy. With all due respect: http://www.eoss.org/faq/faa_liaison.htm Sorry, sport, but 100 kilofeet of altitude is something you will NOT do with some surplus "latex weather balloons." 10 kilofeet maybe. It has to do with BUOYANCY. As the density drops, so does the "lifting power" of the displaced air (from the balloon itself). Worse yet, as the altitude increases, the pressure drops but the lifting gas inside the balloon remains at the same pressure...which will drop depending on the expansion capability of the balloon material. At some point, the differential pressure can exceed the strength of the balloon material. Pop goes the balloon. Could you cite where you got your information? Yes, I can. Old stuff, really. You can do a search under "standard atmosphere" and get a whole pot of hits, from NASA through ordinary-folk sites (some having on-line calculators). There's enough material in basic text books on atmosphere plus gasses. And it can be done for surprisingly little money. "Surprisingly little" is a highly subjective term. Real projects have quite objective, finite budgets. And you expect me to post my budget here? "Suprisingly little" is precise enough for general notes in here. So far, you've been only as concrete as a pipe dream. Ambiguous statements. Now you get all hurt because I post some HARD science figures which WILL come and bite your project's butt if you don't start getting some non-ambiguous numbers. Sounds like you've already filled the "executive" position. :-) Yes I have. I do this kind of stuff. Some years ago, I organized and pulled off one of the premier star parties in the Northeast. That actually took much more red tape than this project. The party is still going on, although under the new management, it is not as profitable, despite growing numbers of attendees. I like organizing groups of people that share a common task. Wanna help? "Help" who? Mike Coslo making a name for hisself? Sorry, in that I am definitely NOT involved. Balloons have been launched from USA soil for over 200 years. "New" they are NOT. This is real stuff. This might spark the interest in science in some youngster. And that is not only a career choice, but a service to the country. American scientists are becoming pretty rare. Tsk. Those "rare" American scientists are still being awarded Nobel Prizes. Even this year. "Becoming pretty rare?" Not quite as any visit to academia will show but feel free to get opinionated. Heh, Better check the citizenship of those engineering students. Its great publicity for Amateur radio. Is it? The globe has been circumnavigated by balloon, millions of those radio-carrying rawinsondes have been launched and tracked (by radio, no GPS needed) since they were started. Kids can get balloons as giveaways in larger stores...or are given out at parties. It will get ham radio noticed, but what is written up by journalists may not be what you expect. Free ballooning has been going in the USA since 9 January 1793, the first American flight by Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard, lifting off from the Walnut Street Prison in colonial Philadelphia. That was witnessed by none other than President Washington. [from "Lighter Than Air Flight" by Lt. Col. C. V. Glines, USAF, Franklin Watts Inc., NYC, 1965, data from pp 29-35] That's over two centuries of time... Thanks for the balloon history. Tsk. LOTS more "history" available. I just picked a book from the shelf at home. Got more on lighter-than-air-flight. And we can innovate and experiment. Radio is a pretty mature science now. It's doubtful that any of us are going to invent a grand new communication scheme, or an antenna that does DC to daylight, or even one that is a whole lot better than what we have now. So What we need to do is to integrate what we have now, and do some innovation with it. We also need (or at least should) prove our worth to the community. That we can do it while having fun is a real bonus. You can have all your innovative fun doing many, many things. Until you find out what helium costs to lift the total balloon (the balloon itself, its payload, its carrying structure, its all going to be a pipe dream having no more basis than enthusiasm. Wanna help? Sorry, I'm not "involved." Too much "hot air" being generated on this "idea" and it hasn't "lifted" me. Read the links (just a suggestion - I know you don't like being told what to do) Check out the links. Do a little homework. "Do a little 'homework?'" Will there be a "test?" I've been involved in basic atmospheric data at work for decades AND have done a bit of lighter-than-air flight experiments as a hobby...including some careful measurements of structures and gas bag material, lifting power versus temperature and local pressure, etc. I usually give you a pass on most things. But dozens of amateurs are doing this. Now, with real payloads, inexpensively. You are very, very wrong. You are very, very petulant. You give some ambiguous phraseology to the group with a bad "sell" image and try to flummox someone with the "it's all for ham radio!" spiel. Not a good way to get a project started. HARD NUMBERS will give the story's baseline...followed by some kind of estimate of project cost. The best way is to have some kind of "rep" behind you. Case example: Maynard Hill was the builder and trier-outer of the TAM project (Trans-Atlantic Model). He had been setting model records (recorded by FAI) for a mere 35 years, mostly in R/C flying (altitude way up to the 20s of kilofeet, distance better than 750 miles to name two). His local club knew it and formed the "STAR" group to get in on the TAM. It took OVER two dozen airframes (built by Hill) to get to the 2003 record breaker after two prior years of all involved footing their own bills to reach Newfoundland and Ireland. By the way, amateur radio WAS involved in that effort. Hill didn't have a big "salesman" pitch. He isn't the type. He tries...and doesn't make a big noise about it whether winning or losing...but he generally WINS much more than losing. No blue skies approach with ambiguous numbers and amorphous statements..."here's what I think it can do..." followed by some estimates which were based on lots and lots of past performance. Now NONE of that model flying thing has any relation to ham radio (other than ham radio being a help in it) but it DOES serve to demonstrate that a purely hobby pursuit CAN do things...based on the can-do types having shown that they can in the past. So, you want "help?" When you can't even cite some stuff from the Standard Atmosphere that's been around for longer than half a century? Not likely from me. |
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