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of September 1998 CQ VHF SkyQuest coverage
Inquiries about SkyQuest or questions about ham radio ballooning in general are welcome. Please email me, Hank Riley, at N1LTV@amsat.org
I'd especially like to hear from folks who came here as a result of the nice Weatherwise article in the November/December article, and/or if you're living in the northeast US and are interested in trying to hear the next SkyQuest on a radio.
You don't have to have an amateur radio license to listen! The best way to get very up-to-date information about launches is to subscribe to the SkyQuest email list, samples of which are found below.
If you live in eatern Massachusetts or Rhode Island, or will be visiting some time, you may like to actually be present at a launch. We don't anticipate a launch in the remaining months of 2001, but plan on some next year. Please email if you're interested in watching a launch, and tell any of your friends who are ham radio operators about us.
To see if there is a balloon group near you in other parts of the country, I'd suggest checking the giant list of balloon groups at the AMSAT website listed below, all with informative websites.
By Nov. 5 I hope to have updated that list to include some new groups that have sent up several balloons this year. If you live in or near Kansas, as you know from the Weatherwise article by Kimbra Cutlip, you're in balloon heaven! Idaho and Colorado are also good. The giant list may also be revised to more easily indicate geographic areas, possibly with a map.
This page needs to be updated for SQ3, but in the meantime HABLIC has all the graphs and some neat pictures from that real nice day at the weather service office for Boston which is actually located in Taunton between Providence, Rhode Island and Boston
full screen image
of September 1998 CQ VHF SkyQuest coverage
SkyQuest 3 is our newest design using multimode telemetry transmission in CW and RTTY, and yet it's still inexpensive enough to throw away. We had a great flight May 21, 2000 at the National Weather Service Boston Forecast Office Open House, so check out this description of the controller capabilities.
Read about our first NWS launch below (SQ2), sign up for the SkyQuest mail list if you want to keep up with our launches either in person at launch day or at home by radio, read the bulletins issued for SQ2, and see the telemetry results sent back to earth using 7 AA penlite batteries and a throw away payload!
We welcome volunteers and spectators at all our launches. We're especially seeking satellite style ham radio operators who have VHF SSB gear and vertically or circularly polarized rotatable yagis for SkyQuest signal tracking.
SkyQuest 2 Photo Gallery (created October 1998)
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All about SkyQuest 2 (May 1998)
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Graphics:
60 second timed telemetry cycle
Temperature-frequency calibration (see also Bulletin #7 below)
Inside and outside temperature plot (see also Bulletin #9 below)
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If you're interested in keeping up with current news about SkyQuest, particularly around launch time, please subscribe to our SkyQuest bulletins. Just email with a sentence mentioning the balloon bulletins; it would be nice to include your name and callsign if available.
SkyQuest 2 Bulletin collection (May 1998 launch series):
Bulletin #1 Welcome
Bulletin #2 HF net control
Bulletin #3 Balloon range vs. height,
time aloft
Bulletin #4 Contributors
Bulletin #5 Miscellaneous
Bulletin #6 Good launch on Saturday;
early DX reports
Bulletin #7 Temperature-frequency function table
Bulletin #8 SkyQuest photo coverage in CQ VHF
magazine
Bulletin #9 Final temperature telemetry
results
Other good amateur radio balloon locations:
High Altitude Balloon Launch Information Center
(HABLIC)
Current information for just about all the launches in North America and
Europe.
The AMSAT balloon webpage with a master directory of virtually all known balloon groups with a web presence.
The Kansas Near Space Project , founded by Paul Verhage, who has been a special friend of SkyQuest.
