Announcement of EOSS-40

note: The original announcement for this flight was lost. This is a recreation compiled on 18-March-2005. the recreation was prompted by the recent submission by Marty Griffin, WA0GEH, of documents pertaining to the flight.

LAUNCH DATE: April 15, 2000, Rain Date April 16, 2000
LAUNCH TIME: 15:00 UTC, 09:00 MDT
LAUNCH SITE: Windsor, Colorado (Gene Fatton's Ranch See Map)

LAUNCH SITE COORDINATES:

• 40deg 28.493' North
• 104deg 57.756' West Longitude

EXPECTED TRACK: East

FLIGHT EXPERIMENTS:

Operational training for University of Colorado - Boulder Students.

FREQUENCIES

Preflight Foxhunter Net:

• 8:00PM the preceding night
• 147.225 MHz Colorado Repeater Association (Thanks)

Launch Site Frequency

• Simplex 146.550 MHz

Telemetry:

• 144.340 MHz FM (1 Watt output)
  • The Packet telemetry stream is in AX.25 format at 1200 baud and is readable in plain English for the most part. Included in each telemetry frame is an APRS position string (APRS users see note below). Every few minutes a CW ID is transmitted on this frequency.

APRS Package:

• 144.39 MHz.
  • This will be the maiden flight of our new APRS package.

Beacon:

• 147.555 MHz
  • This is the primary beacon for the Tracking and Recovery Teams and the constant output of the crossband repeater

ATV: (weight contingent)

• 426.250 MHz AM (1 Watt output) - NTSC video
  • EOSS Shuttle Video

Tracking and Recovery Teams:

• 449.450 MHz Rocky Mountain Radio League Repeater
  • WA0GEH Field Coordinator
• 146.58 MHz Simplex Field Frequency in the field

HF Net:

• 7.235 MHz no net control set as of this writing

Crossband Repeater: The RMRL Crossband (thanks RMRL!) repeater will fly on the following frequencies:

• Input: 445.975 MHz
• Output: 147.555 MHz

Everyone is welcome to use the repeater during a directed net.

The Amateur Video Signals from the payload may be picked up by a cable ready TV set on channel 58. However, you need to be very close to the balloon, and have a directional antenna to do this as cable receivers do not have much sensitivity (why should they?). If you don't have a cable ready set, try tuning DOWN from UHF channel 14. Some sets can receive the signal there too.

Almost all our transmitters are on VHF or above frequencies. Therefore, you need to be line of site to the payload to hear/see it. Since the payload rises to an altitude of over 90,000 feet on most missions, reception is usually possible for folks in most of Kansas, most of Nebraska, most of Wyoming, extreme south eastern Idaho, eastern Utah, north eastern Arizona, most of New Mexico, northern Texas, and western Oklahoma. DO NOT BE DISCOURAGED by the apparent low power of our signals. We usually monitor the Beacon with an HT from the ground station throughout the flight. The signal is strong even at 130 miles and we only lose it when the balloon descends below our horizon.

Marty's Email

I include this email as it is the original preface to the above announcement as it was distributed to various news groups, and email lists.

EOSS #40 Flight Announcement for 4/15/00

Hello everyone,

Thanks to some hard work by Mike Manes, W5VSI, it looks like EOSS #40 is on schedule to launch from Windsor Colorado on April 15, 2000 at the civilized time of 9:00 MDT. The RMRL Crossband repeater will also fly.

This flight is in cooperation with the University of Colorado, Professor Walt Lund and his aerospace engineering students. This flight was scheduled a year ago and cancelled because of poor weather. We expect 10-15 students at the launch site.

The objectives for EOSS #40 will be to familiarize and expose these students with flight operations in preparations for operating their own experiments in future flights.

Additionally, the students will learn to manipulate data (temperature, altitude, barometric pressure) into meaningful analysis, charts and reports. They will participate in pre-launch activity as well tracking processes. In the future, we hope these students will participate in various missions within the next year, eventually flying their own advanced experiments.

Greg Burnett: Can you confirm Gene is OK for this launch? Can you request the northern frequencies?

Mike Manes: Can you file with the FAA?

Tracking and Recovery People: Please advise if you can support this flight to Marty Griffin. This will save a phone call, thanks.

Tentatively, we are also supporting Norm Kjome, University of Wyoming on the same day. Norm will be launching an Air Force Academy flight in Colorado Springs. This will be a "floater" and can loiter until our tracking folks get under it. So bring plenty of gasoline as we may recover our payload and then go south to recover the AFA payload to the south. Norm has offered EOSS some incentives that will help us in future missions. Additionally, he wants his payload back!

Larry Cerney: Do you have new grids? Thanks

For more details see our web page, thanks to Rick Von Glahn, N0KKZ:

http://www.eoss.org

Marty Griffin

Here are the flight details:

(webmaster note: cut from here and edited and placed at the top of this page)

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Flight Profile for EOSS #40

EOSS #40 is on schedule and will launch from Windsor, Colorado at 9:00 am MDT, April 15, 2000. Listen for the beacon on 147.555 and look for ATV on 426.25. The flight should reach 90,000 ft. and the beacons should be heard in a 400 mile radius.

Friday night, April 14, Marty, WA0GEH will conduct the tracking and recovery net on 147.225, 8:00 MDT. Logistics for the tracking and recovery operation will be discussed. Please plan to listen in or, if you are interested, joining the effort. Greg, N0ELM is the EOSS Tracking and Recovery leader and will be on the net.

The Tracking and Recovery net will be on 449.450 MHz Saturday, April 14. Starting about 7:00 am logistic traffic will start to flow. This will be become a DIRECTED net, all traffic for the recovery effort will be directed through Marty, WA0GEH.

Again, the instructions for getting to the launch site, (thanks to Ted, N0RQV):

1. Travel !-25 north to exit 262 (Windsor) 2. Exit, travel east 1.5 mi. to a road with no sign, but has power poles. 3 Turn south, travel 0.4 mi to the launch site, a blue barn on the east side of the road.

Again we thank our host, Gene Fatton for the use of his fine ranch.