Weather Balloon...Anyone with any experience?
Discussion
As a fun project to do with some work colleagues i want to launch a weather balloon and get some video footage at the 100-120,000 ft mark. I have watched a few videos on youtube but can anyone point me in the right direction of an online shop in the UK that can supply weather balloon kits so that we can try and get one launched?
First recommendation - go to www.ukhas.org.uk and have a read. Pretty much anything you need to know is there, somewhere, including links to shops for buying balloons, parachutes, trackers etc.
There's nothing really complicated about flying a weather balloon, but there is a lot to know - getting permission, tracking its location, what cameras to use, how to fill, etc etc. It's a well-trodden path with some pitfalls, and you might as well learn from the experience of other rather than make the usual mistakes :-).
Tracking is the big one and I get pretty annoyed with people who launch balloons without making sure that they can track its location. Don't reply on one of these GSM/GPS trackers (the kind of thing to keep tabs on wandering dogs/grannies) as they have a pretty high failure rate of about 50% when used on balloons.
Best option for the UK is to use a radio tracker. You can make your own if you can solder and do a bit of coding. Or you can buy them ready-made. Unlike a GSM unit, a radio tracker works throughout the flight and you're not relying on the balloon landing somewhere near a cell tower. Also, provided you tell us about it, other balloonists and radio hams will listen to the signal for you, thus helping you do the tracking. That said, don't do what one recent launcher did, and completely rely on others to do the tracking for you - once the payload lands it's down to you to get the signal back (it only has a range of about 1 mile once landed). A receiver setup can be built cheaply using a TV USB dongle.
Dave
There's nothing really complicated about flying a weather balloon, but there is a lot to know - getting permission, tracking its location, what cameras to use, how to fill, etc etc. It's a well-trodden path with some pitfalls, and you might as well learn from the experience of other rather than make the usual mistakes :-).
Tracking is the big one and I get pretty annoyed with people who launch balloons without making sure that they can track its location. Don't reply on one of these GSM/GPS trackers (the kind of thing to keep tabs on wandering dogs/grannies) as they have a pretty high failure rate of about 50% when used on balloons.
Best option for the UK is to use a radio tracker. You can make your own if you can solder and do a bit of coding. Or you can buy them ready-made. Unlike a GSM unit, a radio tracker works throughout the flight and you're not relying on the balloon landing somewhere near a cell tower. Also, provided you tell us about it, other balloonists and radio hams will listen to the signal for you, thus helping you do the tracking. That said, don't do what one recent launcher did, and completely rely on others to do the tracking for you - once the payload lands it's down to you to get the signal back (it only has a range of about 1 mile once landed). A receiver setup can be built cheaply using a TV USB dongle.
Dave
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