**UPDATE**

ASTRO-1 has been recovered!  Harry Mueller requested a pilot freind of his:  Tim Wegenast of Eldorado, Kansas, to fly over the last known heading, and search for the balloon.  He found it just south east of the town of Tonkawa.  It was found on the property of Roy and Irene Brown, who were very helpful and allowed us access to their land.  See the ASTRO-1 pictures section.  More to come…

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Well ASTRO-1 was in several ways a success, and in other ways a significant "learning experience." Before I outline each, let me

recap for those who were not able to come to the event. 

I can tell the story from the perspective of the launch team. 

The launch team arrived at Okeene at about 8:30, and after a bit of searching around the airport, we were able to find a perfect ramp location near the

runway for inflation and launch. The advance teams arrived on station on highway 15 between I-35 and Enid not long after that. The people

in Okeene were very friendly and helpful to us. Sunny Hernandez, as well as Toni Goforth of the Okeene Record, came to take pictures. The

payload systems were set up on a table and prepped by some members of the crew, while others filled the balloon. The weather conditions

were perfect, and we didn't have to fight any wind. After the balloon was filled and the tracking systems checked, the

balloon was raised to launch height with the lanyards and then released. It was an impressive sight to see the balloon lift off. We

said our thank-yous and quickly packed the truck. After the balloon had risen to about 5000 feet, we could no longer receive APRS on the

primary frequency, nor could we hear the beacon very well. We got this sinking feeling in our stomachs, but at least we could hear our

secondary APRS tracker on .39 which was being repeated. We jumped in the truck and started to drive towards the Advance teams.

On the drive out while listening to the chatter on the Enid repeaters, we were very pleasantly surprised to hear that Harry

Mueller from ORB (KC5TRB) and Scott Halley (KD5NJR) both came all the way from the Tulsa area to help us track the balloon. Harry brought

with him another member of ORB, Rich Conn (KC5JXU). After the balloon crossed through approximately 30,000 feet, everyone

lost the APRS signal from the balloon.  If it had not been for Scott, and Harry, the day would have ended there because we did not have any DF'ing equipment. We

heard Daniel (KD5UZZ) say that he had met up with Scott, and they were going to try this "old School". The rest of the day, the

ASTRO group coordinated with Scott and Harry which were the only ones that could really hear the beacon with their directional antennas. We could

occasionally hear the beacon with our omni antennas with the squelch off. Harry pinpointed the beacon to within a couple of sections near

Blackwell, and the group went in all directions to do a final search. No one could pick up the beacon which probably meant that the antenna

broke off on landing. A visual search resulted in nothing. Everyone then met up at a local gas station for a picture, and then we went

home. Hopefully someone will find the payload on a farm and contact us. We have tags with contact info and REWARD listed on every

payload.

On the successful side:

1) The balloon system design that Joe and Kerry put together worked very well. Hookup, inflation, and launch went without a hitch, and

all of us (including the people from Okeene) were excited and impressed to see such a large balloon liftoff and climb so rapidly. Miranda

took some good video of it and we will post a clip soon. 

2) The coordination and enthusiasm of the tracking crew from W5JY was excellent considering this was our first attempt. It made it fun for

all of us even though it was a long day and ultimately we did not find the payload.

3) If the APRS would have worked, I suspect that we would have found out that we exceeded our altitude goal of 100,000 ft. Using the DF

equipment, Harry and Scott found the balloon to be still at altitude well after 2 hours! The last contact we had shows the balloon was

climbing between 1200 – 1300 ft/min. It would have crossed 100,000ft in about 90 min. We may have even had a "floater" which is a

balloon that essentially reaches the top of the effective atmosphere, and "floats" like a ball on the top of water. It will continue

to do so until some disturbance causes it to burst. This also must be the reason we ended up as far as Blackwell.

4) We have made some good contacts for future launches and learned how to better coordinate a search.

On the "Lessons-learned":

1) Ultimately I believe the primary tracking problem was with our antennas. This is the only thing that was really in common among all

of the 3 transmitting systems. My suspicion is that the reason all of us lost the APRS data on .39 at the same time was because that was

when the repeater lost the signal. Otherwise we would have lost the signal at different altitudes because of our positions. We probably

would have lost even the .39 data earlier much as we did the .34 data if the signals were not being repeated. We are able to see the data

from ORB from a mobile on I-35 and hwy 51, while the balloon is well east of Tulsa, so the antennas must be our problem.

On our next launch we will use hand tuned antennas.  Probably dipoles, or 1/4 wave with ground plane I would appreciate any suggestions. Remember that not only do we need

excellent antenna performance when viewed from below, and to the side, but the antenna must survive the landing impact, and possibly some

"dragging" from the parachute.

2) As Daniel said we must be able do go "old school." None of us hasany DF equipment. I will buy 2 or three antennas next week. YJ might

want to buy one or two as well. Maybe we can go out and have a fox hunt sometime.

3) Checklists are a good thing.

 A special thanks to Scott and Harry for traveling so far to help us out. You kept the hunt alive, and if the beacon had continued to transmit after landing,

I'll bet we would have found the payload.

Andy Arena

KE5CAB