3 ms·

It's fun to see habhub in an article. ~10 years ago a group of friends and I launched 2 weather balloons for fun with a GPS logger, APRS transmitter, and a few

by xur17 1mo ago

It's fun to see habhub in an article. ~10 years ago a group of friends and I launched 2 weather balloons for fun with a GPS logger, APRS transmitter, and a few sensors, and then retrieved it afterwards. I have a bunch of memorable experiences from it, including: 1. Under inflating the first balloon because our helium provider was closed, and instead buying lower pressure "party" balloon containers (and not realizing until too late that lower pressure meant more helium left in the containers) 2. Chasing down the balloon at night and trying to explain why you wanted to walk onto some guys field to check for a weather balloon 3. Later calling a gas station to ask if "some guy just arrived with a weather balloon in their truck" when trying to track down the balloon If anyone has kids and wants a fun project, I highly recommend it. There are a few companies online that sell kits, and it's neat to watch the different layers of the atmosphere (temperature and wind), and try to "chase" after the balloon and find it afterwards.

Aurornis 1mo ago
Were you able to find the balloon? Your last point has me wondering what happened. Did someone else get to it first?
- xur17 1mo ago
  Yup. We were able to find it both times. First time it "floated" and traveled further than we expected (at one point habhub predicted it to land in Africa). This is the one we called a gas station about, and we did end up getting it back. Second time was cleaner, and we drove up someone's driveway, and asked if we could retrieve it.
  - dylan604 1mo ago
    We had to move our launch site from where we originally wanted as 3 out of 3 predictions showed our landing site to be on an Air Force base. While I was willing to climb a barbed wire fence way out in the middle of nowhere, a fence around a base was not something I could see myself doing. I also didn't want to end up in a news story for causing military alerts. It was surprising just how far we had to go outside of the city to have it land in a spot that we'd be able to retrieve it.
cronin101 1mo ago
Can you “just do this” or is there some preapproval you’re meant to get beforehand? Presumably the answer varies wildly by jurisdiction.
- xur17 1mo ago
  We did it in the US, and filed a NOTAM with the FAA. The hardest part was figuring out how to convert what I had (we are launching a weather balloon from X, Y coords at Z time) to what they wanted (distance, direction, etc from nearest air tower). It's just a phone number you call, and they were pretty friendly (helping convert my lat / lng to what they needed).
  - moffkalast 1mo ago
    Well if the article is anything to go by, the FAA is barely aware of that part of themselves haha.
- colechristensen 1mo ago
  There are rules you have to understand and follow, notifications required but no approvals if you meet certain criteria. It's mostly an FAA thing in the US, so one jurisdiction.
101008 1mo ago
I had this idea before of sending ballons to "the space" with a collectible object and then retrieve them, saying "I have this specific object that was in space too". Is it possible or am I dreaming too much?
- pjc50 1mo ago
  People do that routinely-ish. https://www.youtube.com/live/Let4NxZRnMA https://www.youtube.com/live/Let4NxZRnMA
- TylerE 1mo ago
  For reasonable definitions of "in space" doesn't really cut it. Balloons top out at around 120,000ft unless you're getting super exotic, and that'll only get you another 20k ft or so. Not even out of the stratosphere. Not space by any reasonable definition. About the lowest thing that could reasonably be called space is the Karmin line, and that's at 100km, or 330,000ft.
- notagoodidea 1mo ago
  Depending on your definition of space, this is what the Earth To Sky does to finance their helium balloons runs: https://www.earthtosky.store/about https://www.earthtosky.store/about. I got a pendant for my partner, it was a nice gift.
  - gaudystead 1mo ago
    Your username betrays you, because this is indeed a good idea. Thank you for sharing! I'd never heard of this, but now have some cool gift ideas for family & friends. :)
  - Antipode 1mo ago
    Pet peeve: I really wish they would stop using fisheye lenses for things like this. The horizon does not look anywhere near that curved at that altitude.
- LtWorf 1mo ago
  Lego did a video of that, they sent one of their space stations sets. I'm quite sure they glued it.
dylan604 1mo ago
We did a similar thing, only we intentionally made it more difficult on ourselves by launching at sunset because we were hoping to grab the view of city lights at night with the GoPros. Also, we did not have any licensed radio operators in our group, so no fun equipment like that. We instead depended on a consumer GPS tracker that updated once ever 5 minutes. We also had an Arduino with various sensors attached, but that was for me as the main purpose was the video footage. Some of the memorable experiences from it: 1) Purchasing equipment to do a Hydrogen launch because this was during a Helium shortage and the cost difference was significant. Arrived at store to pick up our Hydrogen tank where the guy working took a look at us knuckleheads and had serious reservations about selling us inexperienced dorks Hydrogen. Took pity on us and swapped out all of our fittings (hydrogen fittings are specific to prevent accidental use of hydrogen) and sold us the tank of Helium for a much cheaper price than what we were originally told. 2) Printing up stickers to attach to the payload box with "If Found" contact instructions only to realize one second after letting go of the payload that you forgot to attach said stickers. 3) The terror of realizing that when the balloon took off that it immediately headed west when the flight predictions you had been running for the previous days before all showed the balloon landed east. 4) Having to contact ATC to report the launch of the balloon, only to be told they needed further updates at every 10,000' feet. 5) The terror setting in deeper when the consumer GPS unit stopped responding after 30,000' altitude and then having ATC scold how unprofessional we were for using cheap devices. At least they told us they were still tracking it. 6) The shenanigans a group of knuckleheads got up to waiting the ~3 hours for the balloon to land. 7) The relief when the consumer GPS unit started pinging updates again on the way down and the laugh (with us not at us) from ATC that we could start reporting back again. 8) Using mobile Google Maps to attempt to find the GPS location. Wandering around fields in the middle of the night to find a strange circular pattern of out of place plants to realize it was from a deer feeder's throw. Then searching for the nearby camera trap to wave to leave some hunter with serious WTF. 9) Nearly giving up on the search until deciding to use the hotspot to look up the GPS coordinates not on a mobile device to see that the balloon was less than 300' from where we parked making the hours spent wandering really dumb.
- gambiting 1mo ago
  That's incredible.
folli 1mo ago
Can you recommend any kits? Out sounds like an extremely fun hobby.
- xur17 1mo ago
  I used this [0], but it looks like it's sold out. Guessing there might be similar options available elsewhere. [0] https://www.highaltitudescience.com/products/eagle-pro-near-space-kit https://www.highaltitudescience.com/products/eagle-pro-near-...

by xur17 1mo ago

Aurornis 1mo ago

Were you able to find the balloon? Your last point has me wondering what happened. Did someone else get to it first?

xur17 1mo ago
Yup. We were able to find it both times. First time it "floated" and traveled further than we expected (at one point habhub predicted it to land in Africa). This is the one we called a gas station about, and we did end up getting it back. Second time was cleaner, and we drove up someone's driveway, and asked if we could retrieve it.
- dylan604 1mo ago
  We had to move our launch site from where we originally wanted as 3 out of 3 predictions showed our landing site to be on an Air Force base. While I was willing to climb a barbed wire fence way out in the middle of nowhere, a fence around a base was not something I could see myself doing. I also didn't want to end up in a news story for causing military alerts. It was surprising just how far we had to go outside of the city to have it land in a spot that we'd be able to retrieve it.

cronin101 1mo ago

Can you “just do this” or is there some preapproval you’re meant to get beforehand? Presumably the answer varies wildly by jurisdiction.

xur17 1mo ago
We did it in the US, and filed a NOTAM with the FAA. The hardest part was figuring out how to convert what I had (we are launching a weather balloon from X, Y coords at Z time) to what they wanted (distance, direction, etc from nearest air tower). It's just a phone number you call, and they were pretty friendly (helping convert my lat / lng to what they needed).
- moffkalast 1mo ago
  Well if the article is anything to go by, the FAA is barely aware of that part of themselves haha.
colechristensen 1mo ago
There are rules you have to understand and follow, notifications required but no approvals if you meet certain criteria. It's mostly an FAA thing in the US, so one jurisdiction.

101008 1mo ago

I had this idea before of sending ballons to "the space" with a collectible object and then retrieve them, saying "I have this specific object that was in space too". Is it possible or am I dreaming too much?

pjc50 1mo ago
People do that routinely-ish. https://www.youtube.com/live/Let4NxZRnMA https://www.youtube.com/live/Let4NxZRnMA
TylerE 1mo ago
For reasonable definitions of "in space" doesn't really cut it. Balloons top out at around 120,000ft unless you're getting super exotic, and that'll only get you another 20k ft or so. Not even out of the stratosphere. Not space by any reasonable definition. About the lowest thing that could reasonably be called space is the Karmin line, and that's at 100km, or 330,000ft.
notagoodidea 1mo ago
Depending on your definition of space, this is what the Earth To Sky does to finance their helium balloons runs: https://www.earthtosky.store/about https://www.earthtosky.store/about. I got a pendant for my partner, it was a nice gift.
- gaudystead 1mo ago
  Your username betrays you, because this is indeed a good idea. Thank you for sharing! I'd never heard of this, but now have some cool gift ideas for family & friends. :)
- Antipode 1mo ago
  Pet peeve: I really wish they would stop using fisheye lenses for things like this. The horizon does not look anywhere near that curved at that altitude.
LtWorf 1mo ago
Lego did a video of that, they sent one of their space stations sets. I'm quite sure they glued it.

dylan604 1mo ago

We did a similar thing, only we intentionally made it more difficult on ourselves by launching at sunset because we were hoping to grab the view of city lights at night with the GoPros. Also, we did not have any licensed radio operators in our group, so no fun equipment like that. We instead depended on a consumer GPS tracker that updated once ever 5 minutes. We also had an Arduino with various sensors attached, but that was for me as the main purpose was the video footage. Some of the memorable experiences from it: 1) Purchasing equipment to do a Hydrogen launch because this was during a Helium shortage and the cost difference was significant. Arrived at store to pick up our Hydrogen tank where the guy working took a look at us knuckleheads and had serious reservations about selling us inexperienced dorks Hydrogen. Took pity on us and swapped out all of our fittings (hydrogen fittings are specific to prevent accidental use of hydrogen) and sold us the tank of Helium for a much cheaper price than what we were originally told. 2) Printing up stickers to attach to the payload box with "If Found" contact instructions only to realize one second after letting go of the payload that you forgot to attach said stickers. 3) The terror of realizing that when the balloon took off that it immediately headed west when the flight predictions you had been running for the previous days before all showed the balloon landed east. 4) Having to contact ATC to report the launch of the balloon, only to be told they needed further updates at every 10,000' feet. 5) The terror setting in deeper when the consumer GPS unit stopped responding after 30,000' altitude and then having ATC scold how unprofessional we were for using cheap devices. At least they told us they were still tracking it. 6) The shenanigans a group of knuckleheads got up to waiting the ~3 hours for the balloon to land. 7) The relief when the consumer GPS unit started pinging updates again on the way down and the laugh (with us not at us) from ATC that we could start reporting back again. 8) Using mobile Google Maps to attempt to find the GPS location. Wandering around fields in the middle of the night to find a strange circular pattern of out of place plants to realize it was from a deer feeder's throw. Then searching for the nearby camera trap to wave to leave some hunter with serious WTF. 9) Nearly giving up on the search until deciding to use the hotspot to look up the GPS coordinates not on a mobile device to see that the balloon was less than 300' from where we parked making the hours spent wandering really dumb.

gambiting 1mo ago
That's incredible.

folli 1mo ago

Can you recommend any kits? Out sounds like an extremely fun hobby.

xur17 1mo ago
I used this [0], but it looks like it's sold out. Guessing there might be similar options available elsewhere. [0] https://www.highaltitudescience.com/products/eagle-pro-near-space-kit https://www.highaltitudescience.com/products/eagle-pro-near-...