Monthly Archives: October 2013

Vayu-1 Re-launch Announcement

I’m going to re-launch VAYU-1 on Sunday 3rd November 2013 from Shenstone Park in Crayford. Hopefully, all being well with weather etc. we will launch at around 12:30pm. The site is 36m above sea level and so gives nice clearance … Continue reading

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SMD Soldering Technique

During the building of VAYU-1 and VAYU v1.01, I developed a technique for soldering the very small SMD parts including the TPS16016 Boost Regulator chip. This device is a mere 2.5mm across and the pins are minute. Try as I … Continue reading

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VAYU-1 1st Flight

On Sunday 20th October, I set off to Youlbury with my friends Graham, Theresa and young Sebastian to launch VAYU-1 for the Scout JOTA day. In the preceeding week, I’d checked the weather forecast and it consistently said that it … Continue reading

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An added boost!

Before I regale you with the full VAYU-1 launch story, I would like to share with you a small success. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that I took the original CHEAPO Tracker design … Continue reading

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Payload Ready

Conditions still look pretty bleak for a dry launch from Youlbury tomorrow. I’ll make the final decision at around 16:00-17:00 today. Despite that, I have made the payload ready to go. I went through several ideas as I built it … Continue reading

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Vayu v1.01 PCBs

I just wanted to do a quick post to show the VAYU v1.01 PCBs that just arrived fresh from Hackvana. They are absolutely top quality. I’m amazed that the text came out despite being out of tolerance. I decided that … Continue reading

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Vayu-NTX

When field testing my re-design of CHEAPO into VAYU I noticed that the transmit frequency is easily affected by ambient temperature. Although this tends not to be too much of a problem once the payload is several kilometers up and … Continue reading

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A Crash Course in Tracking HABs

To simply see where balloons are and to track their course, go to the website: SpaceNear This site shows positions of balloons live with various telemetry. At the top left hand side is an info panel with current notes on … Continue reading

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Every 10th Sentence

It was suggested by Kristaps (User x-f in #highaltitude) that rather than interleaving this website’s address with the telemetry for VAYU, I should insert it every 10 sentences sent. I had previously thought of this but didn’t know how to … Continue reading

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Launch Announcement

I’ve been invited to launch a balloon at Youlbury Scout Activity Centre in Oxford on 20th October. It will be as part of their JOTA/JOTI event. JOTA (Jamboree on-the-air) is a yearly scout event based around radio communication. It appears … Continue reading

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