Pico balloon PS-68 - what happened?

[VK4ADC]

Just before VKLogger shut down for posts, Andy VK3YT posted:

Hi all,

PS-68 is planned for release at 7am Sat 27 Aug 2016 AEST.
Solar powered party balloon, 10mW TX
APRS on 145.175Mhz
Olivia 8/250 with RSID on 434.649Mhz USB (Dial frequency)

Tracking as PS-68 on SNUS https://tracker.habhub.org/#!mt=roadmap ... ay&f=PS-68
and VK3YT-11 on APRS.FI http://aprs.fi/#!mt=roadmap&z=11&call=a ... tail=43200

Prediction (the red line)
Image

Assistance with tracking is appreciated.

Instructions for tracking can be found here http://picospace.net/?p=736
There should be someone on the IRC forum to help with setup http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=picospace

Andy
VK3YT

What happened ? Did it make it to SE Qld ?
I try to keep across these but that weekend got very busy.

Doug VK4ADC

[VK4ALF]

Hi Doug
it made it the the boarder and then swung east
The digipeater at Nambour saw it but i did not on Olivia at Yandina

I guess it i went portable i might have

It was then seen by APRS north and south island and i think Bob ZL1RS has an olivia spot

then it went ease after doing a loop over ZL

Theres a few screen shots on my HAB Facebook page

[VK4ADC]

Len

I meant to reply a couple of days ago but missed out doing it. My original intention was to see if I could hear/decode this one if it came close enough but that weekend went crazy.

Hopefully Andy VK3YT will be posting future launches on this forum.

73 Doug

[VK2FAK]

Hi all..

We don't at this stage think that the Balloon has gone down, if that was the case there should of been some shorter period TX's which were not recorded anywhere. This Balloon has had a glitch or 2 with the TX, so could just be a gps issue or something else. So don't give up on it just yet.....were looking for any signs of life from it, including CW burst indicating its trying to reset, that will be up around the JT9 freq..

John