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Bill Brown, WB8ELK: Master of High-Altitude Balloon Projects

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Bill Brown, WB8ELK: Master of High-Altitude Balloon Projects Bill Brown, WB8ELK: Master of High-Altitude Balloon Projects This ham estimates that he’s launched more than 500 high-altitude balloon projects over the course of 3 decades. Jen Glifort 8 ounces and able to take live, black- tude projects are known as “pico bal- After watching a documentary about and-white video footage from the loons.” The goal in a pico balloon Joseph Kittinger’s 1960 record-setting stratosphere. “The view was incredi- project is to make everything very parachute jump from a research bal- ble,” Bill said. The Amateur Radio light. Bill’s most recent pico project loon 103,000 feet in the air, Bill community took an interest in this new involved the design of an Amateur Brown, WB8ELK, felt the need to endeavor, and a large foxhunting effort Radio tracker weighing less than half reach for the highest heights himself. took place during the launch — includ- an ounce. “The goal was to create a Bill said, “Kittinger’s description of ing a chase helicopter. The payload tracker transmitter — called the viewing the curve of the Earth and the landed in the Mojave Desert, allowing Skytracker — that is small enough to blackness of space from his strato- the helicopter to land right beside a be flown on such a small balloon for spheric perch inspired me to find a way sand dune to recover the equipment. days or weeks at a time,” Bill said. The to see this incredible view for myself.” Since his first flight, Bill has launched tracker ran entirely on solar power, sent This led to more than 500 launches of high-altitude balloon projects in 21 down position reports every 2 minutes high-altitude balloon projects over the states (see Figure 1). via the low-power APRS transmitter’s span of 30 years. GPS receiver, and flew on a Mylar foil Skytracker party balloon (see Figure 2). The Edge of Space Small balloons designed for high-alti- Bill’s first flight took place from Bill’s latest Skytracker project used a Findlay, Ohio, on August 15, 1987. For larger balloon, from Scientific Balloon his first flight, Bill designed a remote Solutions (scientificballoonsolutions. viewing platform, using a P.C. Elec- com). The payload used a 34-gauge tronics amateur TV transmitter on magnet wire dipole and weighed 17 434 MHz, and a 50 mW, 2-meter FM grams. It stayed in the air for over 75 beacon to track and direction-find the days, floating at 40,000 feet, and cir- payload (this was, of course, before cled the world more than six times GPS). The balloon was a latex weather before coming down in the Ivory Coast, balloon, able to carry up to 12 pounds in Africa. This flight used WSPR mode of Amateur Radio equipment (at 6 to operate on the 20-meter band. Bill pounds per payload) up to about said, “The weak-signal capability of the 100,000 feet without needing an FAA WSPR mode, combined with a distrib- waiver. “Amateur TV stations across uted network of worldwide receive sta- the midwest had beautiful reception tions, makes it possible to use a 20 mW from this tiny, 1 W amateur TV trans- HF transmitter to send position reports mitter as far as 250 miles away,” Bill and telemetry thousands of miles away. explained. “The 2-meter beacon was And, in fact, it was heard several times heard over 400 miles away.” during its flight from the other side of the world.” The payload was found by a farmer in a soybean field 6 weeks later, roughly Figure 1 — A balloon project from Bill Brown, In order to track the flight nearly in real WB8ELK; Paul Verhage, KD4STH, and Ann time, Bill wrote a Python script, which 1 mile from Bill’s estimated landing Boes, KDØQCA, carrying a 4-H Lab Revo- zone. A few months later, Bill was at it lution student experiment at 53,000 feet. This took reception reports from www. photo was taken by a balloon launched by Jeff wsprnet.org/drupal, reformatted the again, this time with the smallest TV Ducklow, NØNQN, of the Mayberry Galactic camera available at the time, weighing balloon group. [Jeff Ducklow, NØNQN, photo] data, and sent it to the aprs.fi website. QST ® – Devoted entirely to Amateur Radio www.arrl.org Reprinted with permission from May 2017 QST Figure 4 — An Angry Bird, scowling from near-space orbit. [Bill Brown, WB8ELK, photo] Amateur Radio licenses. There are fre- Small trackers use less than 4 cubic Figure 2 — Bill Brown, WB8ELK, and his Mylar party balloon, carrying a 12-gram quent student launches of high-altitude feet of helium and, as Bill said, “can be Skytracker APRS tracker. [Bev Teter, balloon projects, sometimes involving inflated right in the classroom as a WB4ELK, photo] photography. Some students have even great way to learn about Amateur taken part in launches to the strato- Radio and inspire STEM [science, There is also tracker.habhub.org for sphere using GoPro cameras, often technology, engineering, and math] tracking these balloons, which has a with a toy in the background. A activities with students.” Students can map display of the aprs.fi data, show- Spaceport Indiana summer science even find ways of tracking balloon ing all Amateur Radio high-altitude camp Bill mentored sent up an Angry projects from their smartphones. These balloons flying at any given time (see Bird (see Figure 4). He also recalled a accessible and economic projects Figure 3). senior class design project at the inspire students to get involved with University of Alabama in Huntsville’s Amateur Radio, and to become Student Launches College of Engineering that involved engaged in hands-on science experi- Bill has mentored many school and students designing, building, launch- ments. “Over the course of 10 years,” university high-altitude balloon pro- ing, and recovering a payload that flew Bill explained, “the BalloonSat class grams over the years. Bill said these on a balloon up to over 100,000 feet. has launched 63 balloons and exposed projects are “a great way to teach stu- Many of the students in this class went hundreds of students to high-altitude dents about space and science,” and on to earn their Amateur Radio ballooning and Amateur Radio.” lead to more students getting their licenses as a result. High-Altitude Balloon Resources You can find more information about Bill’s latest projects on his websites at wb8elk.com and elktronics.com. More resources related to high-altitude balloon projects can be found on sites such as arhab.org, superlaunch.org, eoss.org, kaymont.com, and sphera chutes.com. Bill can be reached at [email protected]. Jen Glifort is an Assistant Editor for QST. She can be reached at [email protected]. Figure 3 — The map from tracker.habhub.org showing which high-altitude balloon launches are taking place at any given time. The WB8ELK-2 Skytracker balloon went around the world six times in 75 days. [Bill Brown, WB8ELK, photo] Reprinted with permission from May 2017 QST ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio® www.arrl.org .
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