Hobby Ham Radio HIgh Altitude Balloon Probably Shot Down

Off Topic
#1

With news sources going 24/7 on balloons, I thought I would mention that hobbyists can also launch balloons to altitudes of 80,000 to 100,000 feet. It’s interesting that the FAA allows this if you meet certain criteria like out from highly controlled airspace, weight, tensile strength,… The Plano Amateur Radio Klub seems to do this occasionally. Once, they invited the Richardson Wireless Klub to participate and I designed a circuit and wrote the program while a friend fabricated the board. An Arduino collected environmental data, passed it to a device to convert the text to audio tones and to a handie talkie for transmission to a network. This is documented in a couple of articles at the following link. Select the …2019-03.pdf file

There is a very long thread from years ago when some DMS folks discussed such a project.

Is there interest in joining the US Weather Service, Chinese Military, extraterrestrials, NASA, ham radio clubs and who knows who else is launching these objects?

Brady W5LH

Update: I changed the title as evidence increases that a hobby balloon was shot down.

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#2

$400,000.00 Sidewinder Missile vs $100.00 Hobby Balloon
Guess who wins?

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#3

In case you were curious:

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#4

That appears to be correct but I thought such details were still classified. I especially like the fossil fuel propulsion system. I’m not aware that this has ever been published before.

#5

NPR has an article with more bckground and an expert prediction that the object was a 98% chance of being the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade project. It also brings up an option that I have wondered about. Why not do a close flyby and let turbulence break the balloon? Since none of our pilots, except Maverick, get to buzz the tower, lets let them buzz the object.