Iowa State Club Launching Experimental Repeater this Saturday

[Davichko5650]

To wrap up their semester of activities, the Campus Amateur Radio Club at Iowa State University (W0ISU) will be launching an experimental amateur radio payload on a high altitude balloon in conjunction with the HABET M2I engineering group this Saturday, December 7th, 2024. The payload will consist of an FM voice crossband repeater controller coupled to a set of VHF/UHF handheld radios using a BNC whip antenna, The payload is estimated to be in the air around 8:30 CST (14:30 UTC), but could be delayed at most two hours due to weather conditions.

EXPERIMENTAL REPEATER INFORMATION:

Uplink TX Frequency: 446.375 (no tone)

Downlink TX Frequency: 146.480 (no tone)

 

CARC will operate the payload in a CQ style fashion so that new members can make as many contacts as possible across the Midwest. Please be courteous when responding to their calls.

 

Courtesy of my Friend Matt, K0LWC at Minnesotahamradio.com for this report.

 

[SteveShannon]

2 hours ago, Davichko5650 said:

To wrap up their semester of activities, the Campus Amateur Radio Club at Iowa State University (W0ISU) will be launching an experimental amateur radio payload on a high altitude balloon in conjunction with the HABET M2I engineering group this Saturday, December 7th, 2024. The payload will consist of an FM voice crossband repeater controller coupled to a set of VHF/UHF handheld radios using a BNC whip antenna, The payload is estimated to be in the air around 8:30 CST (14:30 UTC), but could be delayed at most two hours due to weather conditions.

EXPERIMENTAL REPEATER INFORMATION:

Uplink TX Frequency: 446.375 (no tone)

Downlink TX Frequency: 146.480 (no tone)

 

CARC will operate the payload in a CQ style fashion so that new members can make as many contacts as possible across the Midwest. Please be courteous when responding to their calls.

 

Courtesy of my Friend Matt, K0LWC at Minnesotahamradio.com for this report.

 

Will the balloon be sending position reports using APRS?  Call sign?

[Davichko5650]

13 hours ago, SteveShannon said:

Will the balloon be sending position reports using APRS?  Call sign?

From the article, sounds like they'll be calling CQ, and I'm assuming they'd use the W0ISU callsign.   Article doesn't say anything about aprs, only the U/V freqs listed, so I'd say probably not.

Only passed along the info as it was posted on the MHR website by Matt K. I'll be hanging at the wrench's place watching a couple oil changes for mine and XYL's vehicle, so may trying to see ig I hear them on the old BooFwang...