General Radio Coverage Plots

EOSS flies primarily out of two locations. Deer Trail in the summer and Windsor in the winter. The plot below was made with Radio Mobile, an excellent and FREE topographically sensitive RF propagation and mapping program. The plot depicts the general coverage area for flights from Windsor, Colorado. This plot shows areas where our payloads should be readable when the balloon is at MAXIMUM altitude. This plot was made for coverage from a balloon at 95,000 feet ASL. The summer Deer Trail flights usually reach apogee around 50 miles south, southeast say around 160 degrees from the center of this plot, which is denoted by a tiny neutral gray circle above I-76 just north of Ft. Morgan on this plot. Running plots like this for every flight is a bit too intensive for me to get into. So, this should do for a general overview.

Green area - payload in line of sight. Red - denotes the boundary between readable and unreadable signals. It is very granular due to topographic irregularities of the surface of the Earth. The mountains are pretty self evident to the SW of the payload at maximum altitude.

Specific Predictions for Distant Observers

For each and every flight I do run predictions for a list of "Distant Observers". This is a list of cities around Colorado. They are located in Colorado and also neighboring states. I urge you to check it out if you are planning to follow one of our flights.

If you want an accurate prediction customized for your location you can ask to be added to the iGate prediction page. Send in your latitude, longitude, altitude and a station name, preferably your amateur radio callsign if you have one so I can identify your location and include predictions for your station. You don't actually have to be an iGate to get included. If you like following our flights I'd be happy to include your callsign and location in that printout.