Monthly Archives: April 2018

Balloon Recovery

WX Sonde

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A short sharp and shiny post !

There’s been a clear increase in interest in tracking and chasing the Bureau of Meteorology radiosonde launches here in VK5. Many have been tracking these on tracker.habhub.org and aprs.fi, and there have been quite a few new faces sighted near sonde landing locations!

to this end, I have set up a mailing list where items such as RX ground stations, chasing, and chasing co-ordination can be discussed.  This will also help avoid situations that have been encountered recently, where people have travelled quite long distances to find a sonde has already been recovered.

If you are an active RX station or a chaser we would encourage you to subscribe to the VK5 WX Sonde list.  All new members need to be approved before posting, and that will usually be done within a day or so.

For those new to this activity, the following resources will help:

Launches out of Adelaide occur twice a day, at 8:45 AM and 8:45 PM. The automatic sonde receiver stations usually detect the sonde shortly after launch, and upload telemetry to the HabHub Tracker ( https://tracker.habhub.org/#!mt=roadmap&mz=7&qm=6_hour&mc=-34.13946,138.42875 ).
Mt Gambier launches occur on Mondays and Thursdays at 8:45AM. Launches are also performed from Woomera and Ceduna, though we don’t currently know the schedules for these sites.

The Mailing list was established so that the Various RX station operators can discuss any issues and or set-up hints and tips.  For the Chaser, the list can be used to co-ordinate and notify when you intend to chase and to notify  when you actually find a Sonde.