Hello High-Altitude Balloon (HAB) Friends,
The first page of the attached file was submitted as a press release to virtually all news agencies in the Santa Barbara area and we anticipate some good press as a result.
Please keep your eyes and ears open for publicity and if possible, capture it electronically and send it to me so we can put it in our archives.
I hope many of you can observe the launch and monitor the progress on amateur radio as we track and recover the payload. Send your signal reports to wb9kmo@sbarc.org. We hope to get reports from 450 miles away or more.
The flight from Santa Barbara is expected to last about three hours. We currently anticipate a landing near Maricopa, California!
We will use three balloon coordination frequencies that you can listen on.
. 146.43 SIMPLEX (TRANSMIT IS ENCOURAGED) - This is the primary "simplex" channel for balloon communications. Between 7am and 3pm, all radio amateurs can LISTEN and TALK here, but try to keep communications brief and please give priority to BALLOON COMMUNICATORS, who you can recognize by their tactical call signs, like PAYLOAD, SCIENCE, SB TRACKING, VENTURA TRACKING, etc. We'd love to chat with you about the balloon event on this frequency.
. 147.000 TALK (LISTEN MOSTLY, TALK BRIEFLY) - This is an alternate channel for the MONTECITO-SUMMERLAND RUN and HIGH-ALTITUDE BALLOON directed net from 7am to 3pm. You can LISTEN and TALK here as long as you are brief and give priority to net traffic.
. 146.79 CALL (LISTEN ONLY) - This is a directed net from 7am to 3pm. It is the primary channel for the MONTECITO-SUMMERLAND RUN and HIGH-ALTITUDE BALLOON communications and must be strictly controlled to ensure that emergencies and other traffic are handled effectively. You can LISTEN, but DO NOT TRANSMIT on this repeater during the net unless you are an authorized EVENT or BALLOON COMMUNICATOR.
Javier Rivera and the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum sparked the idea and sponsored this launch. I truly appreciate the help from Levi Maaia, K6LCM, who consulted on the balloon launch, composed the press release and submitted it to news agencies. Bill Brown, WB8ELK and many others are providing much-needed assistance. Thank you for your help to prepare us for a successful mission.
Enjoy the day,
Rod Fritz, WB9KMO
SBARC OUTREACH Committee Chair
BALLOON PAYLOAD Coordinator