High-Altitude Adventure with a DIY Pico Balloon
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High-Altitude Adventure with a DIY Pico Balloon
1–10 of 61 posts
Re: High-Altitude Adventure with a DIY Pico Balloon
#2Pretty cool, although it's polluting so hopefully it wouldn't become too popular (probably not).
"And because such diminutive payloads don’t pose a danger to aircraft" even though they are small and wouldn't make a plane crash, I can imagine they would cause some damage if they ever enter a jet engine, although that would be unlucky as they would mostly fly higher than aircraft. I also wouldn't like it to fall on my head, but with the solar panels as depicted and the small weight I suppose it could somewhat glide.
Re: High-Altitude Adventure with a DIY Pico Balloon
#3QRPLabs sell even lighter trackers
https://www.qrp-labs.com/u4b.html
and AFAIK are the goto supplier for HAB (High Altitude Ballooning) enthusiasts.
Re: High-Altitude Adventure with a DIY Pico Balloon
#4Very cool! Brings this to mind: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/17/object-us-mi...
Re: High-Altitude Adventure with a DIY Pico Balloon
#5This sounds so cool!
> I’m a little puzzled about the balloons’ telemetry messages received on the WSPR network, as they have been few and far between.
But wouldn't there be a way to send messages to Starlink satellites instead of WSPR? Is it a problem of power consumption? (It would be great to be able to transmit images, not just GPS pings).
Re: High-Altitude Adventure with a DIY Pico Balloon
#6This sounds so cool! > I’m a little puzzled about the balloons’ telemetry messages received on the WSPR network, as they have been few and far between. But wouldn't there be a way to send messages to Starlink satellites instead of WSPR? Is it a problem of power consumption? (It would be great to be able to transmit images, not just GPS pings).
If you are wanting to send images, there are already some cool ways to do that: either SSTV (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow-scan_television) or Wenet, which sends them at a much higher speed: https://github.com/projecthorus/wenet.
Re: High-Altitude Adventure with a DIY Pico Balloon
#7Pretty cool, although it's polluting so hopefully it wouldn't become too popular (probably not). "And because such diminutive payloads don’t pose a danger to aircraft" even though they are small and wouldn't make a plane crash, I can imagine they would cause some damage if they ever enter a jet engine, although that would be unlucky as they would mostly fly higher than aircraft. I also wouldn't like it to fall on my…
It also reminds me of the recent incident where an object (potentially a weather balloon) struck a plane windscreen and caused significant damage to it, as well as injuring one of the flight crew. I don't know if it would cause the same amount of damage given it's size, but hitting any solid object at cruising speed is sure to leave a mark
Re: High-Altitude Adventure with a DIY Pico Balloon
#8I'm currently thinkering of building a balloon with a 2.4GHz LoRa transmitter (SX128x) and a low-power STM32U microcontroller.
Why?
- You can repurpose 2.4GHz Wifi gear opening many doors
- You can easily include volunteers dumping data from HF into a IP sink for telemetry. TTGO offers boards with 2.4GHz LoRa.
- Theoretically you still can add a "low rate" 868MHz/433MHz and a "high rate" 2.4GHz for transmitting pictures and other stuff more quickly.
- BOM friendly. As the balloon might get lost you have to plan a bit for costs.
Re: High-Altitude Adventure with a DIY Pico Balloon
#9Pretty cool, although it's polluting so hopefully it wouldn't become too popular (probably not). "And because such diminutive payloads don’t pose a danger to aircraft" even though they are small and wouldn't make a plane crash, I can imagine they would cause some damage if they ever enter a jet engine, although that would be unlucky as they would mostly fly higher than aircraft. I also wouldn't like it to fall on my…
It also reminds me of the recent incident where an object (potentially a weather balloon) struck a plane windscreen and caused significant damage to it, as well as injuring one of the flight crew. I don't know if it would cause the same amount of damage given it's size, but hitting any solid object at cruising speed is sure to leave a mark
shouldnt be cruising in the balloon lane then
Re: High-Altitude Adventure with a DIY Pico Balloon
#10I'm currently thinkering of building a balloon with a 2.4GHz LoRa transmitter (SX128x) and a low-power STM32U microcontroller. Why? - You can repurpose 2.4GHz Wifi gear opening many doors - You can easily include volunteers dumping data from HF into a IP sink for telemetry. TTGO offers boards with 2.4GHz LoRa. - Theoretically you still can add a "low rate" 868MHz/433MHz and a "high rate" 2.4GHz for transmitting pictu…
lol. WPRS works like 10.000km per WATT on HF. You can't do it with 2.4ghz.
Ham radio basics