News

Communications to other hams around the world, it's a competition!!! The Rules... Moncton area Field day held at 1343 Mclaughlin drive 4.3 km north from Macarthur's Nurseries Inc. Bring the family and have a good time...Starts at 3pm Saturday

To promote the use of the 70 CM band, a weekly UHF Net is now being held on repeater VE9SHM in Moncton at 20:00 local ( 8:00 PM) on Sunday evenings. If you have UHF capabilities, please check in.

Repeater Call Sign: VE9SHM : Repeater Location: Moncton, NB : Repeater TX: 449.325 MHz : Repeater RX: 444.325 MHz ( 5 MHz offset )

Amateur Radio: From hobby to helping those in need By Robert Cherry, VE2AGE. Do you want to know more????

The link below is to one of several articles in the latest edition of SARSCENE magazine, a publication of Canada's Nation Search and Rescue Secretariat: http://www.nss.gc.ca/site/ss/magazine/vol16_3/articles/radio_e.asp. The SARSCENE e-magazine is distributed worldwide to untold thousands of subscribers, most of which are search & rescue practitioners, managers, organizers, suppliers, or supporters. This article shows Amateur radio in a positive light by highlighting emergency services provided by dedicated Ham operators.

A Yaesu FT2400 Two Meter rig was stolen from the vehicle of Stephen VE1MPF / VE9SC on Wednesday 7 March 2007. If you hear of anyone trying to sell one, please call the Codiac RCMP at 506-857-2400.

The saga of the balloon which was launched as a science project on March 15, 2007 by a class of Grade 5 students in Michigan. The balloon crashed in the Maritimes on March 16, 2007. It was eventually found and retrieved by Reed Park, VE1NU and Mike MacDonald, VE1ASE on March 22, 2007. Here are some messages and photos telling the story....

Yesterday Robert Rochte KC8UCH released a balloon carry amateur radio equipment from near Detroit, MI, and it appears to have landed in the Maritimes around 0215Z last night. It is carrying both an APRS beacon and a long-lasting 10m CW beacon. Do you think you could get the word out to local hams to swing their beams for a faint CW signal on 28.636 MHz +/- 1 KHz and forward any reports to me?

The last APRS packets relayed to findu.com were a minute apart, and were received by digis in Saint John, NB (VE9APR, 0205Z) and southern PEI VE1AC, 0206Z). At that time the balloon would have been descending slowly and probably tracking in an ENE direction. It could have been anywhere with 50 miles north or south of a line between those two ground stations.

Steady carriers on 28.636 MHz are most likely harmonics of NTSC TV colorburst oscillators; we aren't interested in those. The CW beacon is sending at about 13 wpm every 2 minutes for about 50 seconds, then sending a "dit" every 5 seconds until the next transmission. It identifies with my callsign, KA2QPG, and a flight designator, GPA/SD2.

Any assistance would be most appreciated. I'm CC'ing this to a few other hams in your area.

While driving home this afternoon, I heard your beacon on 28.636 MHz I recorded the beacon on my cell phone and decoded it when I got home. Here is what I think I heard.

My cw is rather rusty, as I only use it once a year. Then I am using an old military #19 set on November 11th.

I hope this info is of some use to you. I have attached a map to show you where I was at the time of reception. I was heading south at the time.

A thousand thanks for your report! It's now five days since the balloon flight, and I had pretty well given up on hearing from it.

- the mission timer is still running (actually 122 hours 10 minutes; the hundreds digit is not sent)

I think we have many days of life left in the battery; it is a nominal 12V pack of lithium batteries. The beacon will continue to operate until it gets down to 5.2 volts, at which point the regulator will be unable to maintain 5 volts to the electronics.

It's possible the beacon is west of the river; I use a small shielded loop (8" of RG-8 coax with the shield broken halfway, series tuned with a variable cap) for direction finding on 10m. If you know any hams in the immediate area with rotatable beam antennas, please ask them to listen and get a Line of Position using the null on the sides of the beam.

Here's one more point to pass along to your friends: Since the CW transmitter is just a crystal oscillator connected to a dipole, you may be able to hear its 5th harmonic on 143.18 MHz at close range. Most SAR folks are better equipped for DFing a VHF signal than an HF signal.

The balloon is made of translucent polyethylene, and is about 3m long. The payload package is a white styrofoam cooler chest wrapped in duct tape, with a 1m yellow and purple parachute attached.

Just a note to let you know the balloon was found and retrieved today at approx 1715 hrs ADT by VE1NU, Reed Park and VE1ASE, Mike MacDonald.

More info to follow when we get a write up done as to exact GPS co-ordinates etc.

Here is what the balloon looked like with my digital camera on full zoom.

Look in the upper right corner of the photo above.

Looks like a small clearing or maybe a white birch tree.

Now look in the upper left of the above photo. The white patch is the balloon in shreds.

This is Mike MacDonald, VE1ASE and Eric in the background. Eric is the land owner. When we asked permission to walk through his land to get to the site, he said to jump into his FWD as it was too muddy to walk. Very nice guy. Didn't want his picture taken.

Exact location where the balloon & payload were found in Memramcook, New Brunswick, Canada