Hats off to a stunning acheivement
Well done mate!!!
Brit balloon bod Leo Bodnar has pulled off a bit of a blinder by successfully flying an ultralight radio payload right round the planet. Launched on 12 July from near Silverstone, Northamptonshire, B-64 yesterday returned to Blighty, and was this morning still going strong over Sweden. The path of the balloon yesterday as it …
well a B2 is supposed to have the equivalent radar cross section of a pigeon, but Russia have claimed for years that they have the ability to detect it. Also B2's don't squawk radio waves in all directions.
Jast saying that balloon had to cross some very paranoid airspace
@neil_barnes They're not planning on lowering the speed of light again are they? Bloody environmentalists.
Mind you if they do, could they make it about 100mph then I can experience all those weird clocks-run-slow, man-on-station-platform-weighs-twice-as-much relativistic effects every time I use Virgin West Coast.
434.500MHz is a spot frequency in the 70cm Amateur band (430-440 Mhz in ITU Region 1 and 420-450 in regions 2 & 3).
The 2m Amateur band is 144-146MHz in ITU region 1 (144-148 in regions 2 & 3). The actual transmission frequency on 2m changes as the balloon passes through different APRS regions.
I can't wait for the Holywood film about this:
Brad Bodnar, a geek from Wisconsin who has always fancied the lead cheerleader from high school, launches his balloon. It then flies round the world until it reaches North Korea who are just about to launch a Nuke at the USA. Brad's balloon detects this (don't ask me how) and he then re-programmes it, you will see him furiously typing at a keyboard while lots of code scrolls up the screen and there is an animation of his balloon on the screen, the balloon descends in to the path of the nuke and destroys it.
Everyone is so grateful, especially the cheerleader who dumps her meat-head boyfriend and marries Brad.
President Halle Berry is at their wedding.
The End
PS - Well done Leo - A pint to you.
But I bet it ain't. And doesn't the payload look like a mini Hubble telescope in the pic, or is that getting too nerdy?
Anyway top marks to him, and an obligatory pint of the good stuff (without the "benefit" of having been sent aloft itself).
Ad Astra Tabernamque - as they say in Spain.
I make it 21 countries to and including Sweden:
England, France Italy Albania Macedonia Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China, North Korea, Japan, USA, Canada, Greenland, Holland, Denmark and Sweden.
With a fair short at including Finland...
And it could have clipped a corner of German territory between Holland and Denmark.
Amazing and astounding. ELEVEN GRAM PAYLOAD!
Wow!