Got home pretty close to midnight last night. Was getting stuff together to do the laundry when I received an email from a Ham radio friend of mine telling me about an Arizona Amateur Radio (ARA) balloon going up this morning.
I drove the truck into the back yard to avoid interference from the house and programmed the radio. Sat there waiting to hear noise and about fifteen minutes later. I was hearing stations. The balloon was transmitting on 445.525 MHz, and receiving on 145.560 MHz and as luck would have it. I pulled my dual band radio out of the work truck last night and had it at home.
Soon afterwards I was able to talk to Rex N7NGM. He was in Chino Valley AZ while I was here in Lake Havasu AZ. And the balloon was around Casa Grande.
Straight shot, Chino Valley is about 100 miles, while Casa Grande is twice the distance. But having the balloon at that high altitude makes stations from all over able to talk to other stations at really long distances.
While I was talking to Rex, there was another station in, I believe it was Porterville CA.
This picture is from aprs.fi and this is a link that you can track my movements. But this picture shows the location of KA7NSR-11 the balloon that the ARA sent up today.
I've only been an amateur radio operator for about two years. But keep discovering new avenues all the time.
Straight shot, Chino Valley is about 100 miles, while Casa Grande is twice the distance. But having the balloon at that high altitude makes stations from all over able to talk to other stations at really long distances.
While I was talking to Rex, there was another station in, I believe it was Porterville CA.
This picture is from aprs.fi and this is a link that you can track my movements. But this picture shows the location of KA7NSR-11 the balloon that the ARA sent up today.
I've only been an amateur radio operator for about two years. But keep discovering new avenues all the time.
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