Looking For A Landed Balloon - Vermont

[Delons]

Hey guys!

 

Today we launched a weather balloon from Connecticut. It ascended to 80,000ft, one of the balloons then popped, and it "slowly" (at about 70mph) landed in north east Vermont. It is a 6 hour drive from where we live, and it landed in a woods type place, so for us to take that ride would not be worth it. Since the APRS GPS was only set to transmit every 5 minutes the last known transmission was at 3700ft. I assume it then "crashed", and the radio stopped transmitting. I am very interested in retrieving the camera that was placed in the balloon.

 

So, if anybody here lives in this part of Vermont and wants to go on a little adventure, our HAM Radio Club would appreciate it!

 

The last known coordinates were: 44°56.64' N 71°34.24' W

 

Chances are it is within 2 miles north, east, or south of that point. It's some pretty dense woods. I'm not sure if we can find it, but if we could, that would be amazing.

 

Here is a map view with the last two known coordinates. The circle indicates where I believe it landed, with green being more likely, and red being less likely. I'm assuming it was coming down pretty slow at this point, but I do know that it landed within 5 minutes of the last transmission.

 

 

Here is the satellite view of the same area.

 

 

As far as we know one of the balloons should still be inflated, since only one popped, as long as the other didn't pop while landing. That should make it a little easier to find.

 

Hopefully somebody is very close to the area! Thanks!

Edited May 18, 2014 by Delons

[+BBWolf+3Pigs]

A posted a link to this posting in the New England Geocaching group on Facebook. Maybe someone there can help you out!

[Keystone]

I am moving this thread of regional interest from the Geocaching Topics forum to the Northeast forum.

[Delons]

After contacting some people around there we ended up finding the neighbors of the land. Since it's private property, they are trying to find the phone number of the guy who owns the land it's on. We are coming very close!

[7rxc]

After contacting some people around there we ended up finding the neighbors of the land. Since it's private property, they are trying to find the phone number of the guy who owns the land it's on. We are coming very close!

Don't know what you were using for a tracker... our APRS rigs were using handhelds for transmitters...

and I can say that just because you can't receive a signal does not mean it isn't transmitting.

Had one where the antenna was folded under the payload and on the ground in a gully, but a portable APRS rig could hear it... not to mention the RDF rigs. Even just using HTs and listening was useful in finding that one.

 

Even if you used something like a SPOT or Inreach unit they have to transmit something.

 

Good luck, Amateur Balloons are fun. Not so much to find sometimes.

 

Doug 7rxc (VE7RXC)