Hi James!

Not sure where you got the misunderstanding, but almost all the vehicles have APRS radios on board and most of us are very seasoned ARHABr's.

You are likely questioning the focus on i-gates. We are using standard and some non-standard frequencies, so we are setting up I-gates to service those non-standard frequencies. We have a lot of balloons flying and the DFW area is extremely saturated with APRS '390 traffic, so those i-Gates for those odd frequencies allow guys like you to see those flights on findu or APRS.fi too. Some are using mobile i-Gates - we have a fair bit of coverage with cell towers here - but not 100% by any means, so there will be drop outs. However, yes we have radios in our cars and with some setups like mine, remove the GPS unit and GeoCache right to the balloon.

--Michael
K5NOT

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Are any of the chase crews going to have radios onboard?

With an APRS capable radio in the chase vehicle, you can hear the payload right down to ground level if you are located close enough to the landing area.

It's pretty hard to have a fixed I-gate installed right next to where a payload will land, but a chase vehicle with an APRS capable radio onboard can usually drive fairly close to the landing area, even when the winds aloft and burst altitude change the landing area from the predicted landing area.

Trying to get a final landed position report to the APRS-IS via fixed assets is a difficult proposition. Mobile I-gates can help get packets to the APRS-IS where cellular coverage allows, but the best bet is to receive the packets directly off air with a radio in the chase vehicle.

Using the APRS-IS stream as your intercept source leaves much to be desired as both the payload can disappear from view of the APRS-IS, but your chase vehicle can lose access to the cellular network as well.

Rarely do remote observers ever recover payloads. People watching the flights from hundreds or thousands of miles away are probably content to see the general landing area within a couple hundred feet based on a last heard position from a thousand feet above terrain as last heard via an I-gate located a hundred or so miles away.

James
VE6SRV

-- 
--Michael Willett
Advanced Sourcing, Inc. 
214-578-2400
mw@...