[ WC4AR ] Fwd: [tnballoon] TABEL-5 flight announcement for 28Jun08

[Greg Tomerlin]

I am announcing the fifth flight of the Tennessee Balloon Group, TABEL-5.
(Tennessee Area Balloon Experimental Launch #5)

Date/Time: June 28, 2008 10AM Central Time
Mission Location: Wilson County Fairgrounds, Lebanon, TN.
Callsigns/Freq/Modes: 144.39MHz APRS NT4BG-12
Webpages: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tnballoon/
http://www.groovin.net/ke4pjw/balloon
http://nt4bg.net
Additional Information: 1500g Balloon

This flight is in cooperation with the Wilson County Amateur Radio Club and 
their Field Day 2008 operations.  We will be flying a cross-band repeater as the 
main payload. VHF up and UHF down.

The cross-band repeater is a pair of Motorola HT-90 portables linked with a 
small controller.

Uplink is 146.55 MHz with a CTCSS of 192.8.

Downlink is 445.850 MHz.

IF all goes well, it may end up being full duplex, in which case a 2m user could 
stay on 2m as long as the other user stays on UHF. At the least it will be half 
duplex as described above, and all users will need to be able to Tx on 2m & Rx 
on UHF.

We are planning to fly the main APRS tracker as a separate payload.  This 
package consists of a Garmin GPS18 GPS Receiver (proven high altitude model), an 
OpenTracker (OT1x), and a Maxon DM-0515 VHF data radio (~5W) 144.39MHz APRS 
NT4BG-12.

The APRS tracker will be using Lithium AA cells and the repeater will use 
Lithium-Ion rechargeable packs for power.

We will also use a 50mW 2m (146.565MHz) FM/morse code ID Beacon.

We will use a 1500g Balloon and a sub one pound, 60 inch parachute.

The current plan is to use Hydrogen as the lifting gas.

Total payload weight should be about 6 lbs.

We hope to reach over 100K feet. There is no cut down mechanism.


Bruce


--
Bruce W. Martin, KQ4TV
Tennessee Balloon Group, NT4BG