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1. Glow in the dark balloons diy black light how to#
2. Glow in the dark balloons diy black light software#

Glow in the dark balloons diy black light how to#

It took just a little more work to figure out how to decode these signals so that I could track radiosonde position and altitude. In no time, I was picking up FM signals from the balloons being launched from the Greensboro airport at 7 a.m. To receive these signals, I quickly cobbled together a 1/4-wave antenna (using an online calculator to size the elements), plugged that into an SDR dongle attached to my laptop, and ran the HDSDR software, which I had used for various other projects. Graw DFM-17 radiosondes, transmitting on 403.4 megahertz. The balloon data on the Sondehub site shows that the NWS in Greensboro is using

Then I could go to my best guess for the landing site and try to pick up the signal from the downed radiosonde-transmitting perhaps from high in a tree (which would no doubt present its own interesting technical challenges).

Glow in the dark balloons diy black light software#

A laptop runs the software used to analyze the signal, and an orange safety vest reassures onlookers.Ĭlearly, I’d need to track these things myself, following them down as close to the ground as possible. Even a simple omnidirectional antenna will serve for that, but a Yagi antenna provides greater sensitivity and directionality. You can use an inexpensive software-defined-radio dongle to track radiosondes carried aloft by weather balloons. But the radio amateurs who have been tracking balloons launched from Greensboro are located quite far away, and they typically lose contact when the falling radiosonde reaches a few kilometers’ altitude, which leaves considerable uncertainty in the radiosonde’s final position.

I’ve been using this site to follow the balloons launched from the airport in Greensboro, N.C., about 70 km from my home. It’s amazing: You can track the flights of weather balloons around the world in real time using data received by radio amateurs. My hunting gear would be a pair of homemade antennas and a software-defined radio (SDR). Tracking one down and returning it would be a way for me to say, “Thank you” for the essential work the folks there do. The NWS reuses returned radiosondes when it can. Sometimes these radiosondes are found on the ground. The radiosonde package descends, slowed by a small parachute. Eventually the balloons ascend so high that the low pressure causes them to burst. During their flights, which can last as long as a few hours, they transmit data by radio. National Weather Service (NWS) alone sends them up twice a day from about 100 different locations. Weather services around the world launch countless numbers of these balloons. They measure atmospheric conditions up to altitudes of 30 kilometers or more, providing key data for the computer models that give us our weather predictions. Radiosondes are instrument packages carried aloft by weather balloons. And I recently found a challenge that involves hunting-with downed radiosondes as the quarry. But I do enjoy a good technical challenge. I’ve never hadan interest in pursuing game such as deer or grouse.