[Xastir] High-altitude balloon... It's not stopping

[Bill Owens N2RKL]

On Mon, Jul 14, 2003 at 04:02:39PM -0700, Curt Mills wrote:
> KC8UCH-11.  Balloon was launched in Michigan today, it's still
> going.  Evidently it didn't pop like it was supposed to.  It's at
> 51k feet right now.

I don't think it was supposed to pop. The first time that one of these
was launched, Robert KC8UCH posted some information about it:

>The expected track (somewhat unpredictable due to the experimental nature of
>the envelope - float altitude is estimated at 40k feet) will take it south
>and then south-east, possibly as far as the Carolinas.  It is likely to
>float all day and into the evening hours with final descent expected around
>sunset.

He also has a website that has pictures and an account of the first,
much shorter flight: http://mail.gpacademy.org/~rochter

BTW, the balloon's tracker managed to get packets all the way to my
station here in Syracuse, apparently hitting some *really* WIDE digis:
VE3VWD, VA3BAL, W2ICZ-2 and N3FJA-15. I did a quick great-circle
calculation and showed 300 groud miles to one VA3BAL for one of the
packets, while the balloon was at 40k feet.

Bill N2RKL