Weather Balloons & Wireless 157
mansa writes "Over at CNN they have an article about a company that wants to expand wireless coverge with weather balloons! I hope it's not just a bunch of hot air! "
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Weather Balloons & Wireless
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Hasn't this... (Score:3, Informative)
Better alternatives (Score:2, Informative)
Now we know that NASA has great plans for its solar-powered airplane -- including acting as a semi-permanent flying repeater-station, but I wonder if smaller, cheaper options might not be available.
For example... what about a much smaller (say 20-30 foot span) autonomous craft designed to soar thermals during the day (while charging its batteries and gaining as much altitude as it can) -- then revert to battery power and/or gradually descend during the hours of darkness.
If the energy required to keep these craft airborn in the longer nights of winter was greater than that availble to be stored during the day then they could carry a fuel-load to power a high-efficiency internal combustion engine (probably a very small diesel engine). Every week or so the craft would have to land for refueling and maintenance -- but that's not a big deal.
Just like the US military's Predator RPV, they could be programmed to land on a runway set aside specially for the purpose.
The cost of a smaller craft, particularly one that wasn't totally reliant on solar-cells, would likely be much less than NASA's efforts -- thus allowing more of them to be built for a given budget.
By using more craft, they could cruise at a much lower altititude than either the weather balloon or the NASA craft.
Using modern composites, low cost GPS, and other "affordable" technologies, such a craft could likely be built for less than US$10K.
Assuming a 50% duty cycle, a fleet of 10 craft could cover a huge area at a much lower cost than towers, and with the ability to dynamically vary the coverage area if required -- simply by repositioning the craft.
Hot Air? (Score:2, Informative)
Most weather balloons actually use Helium. The volume of He in the balloon expands with increased altitude which results in cooling of the gas... No "hot air" in this one as temperatures can drop to minus 125 degrees Celsius in polar mesospheric clouds that form over the summertime polar caps. However, most WX balloons don't get much higher than the stratosphere.
Yes, I realise it was pun... just thought I throw in some factoids.
Re:Forget playing Quake (Score:4, Informative)
Well I hate to burst your balloon but... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually not quite...
The balloon flights actually only last about two hours and then the balloons break. In fact the balloon flights in question are done world wide at 0000 and 1200 UCT (Used to be GMT). They record temperature, humidty, air pressure and by triangulating from the ground tracking antenna you can calculate upper level winds.
I'm actually being generous with the length of flight. The time of year has a lot to do with the length of flight. The calculated height of the flight is related very much to the air pressure and for a flight to be valid it generally must be below 100 millibars. (The higher the balloon the lower the millibar reading). A flight reaching 3 millibars is around 120,000 ft. Summer flights usually have balloon bursts below 15 millibars. In winter early bursts, above 100 millibars, can require a second release, provided it happens within a given time window. The weather instrument package is called a radiosonde. Two types of upper air balloon a generally used for launching off the surface. For calmer winds a soft cheap latex balloon called a Kaysam is used and for adverse wind conditions or launch from a ship at sea a severe weather balloon called a Totex is used. (Totex is more rugged and more expensive)
They say they plan to hitch a ride on the existing balloons. The short duration is going to be a problem. The balloons expand as they rise and then go BOOM
I worked as an Aerological Observer for Environment Canada at a variety of Arctic Weather stations for about six years sending these suckers up there! There are long duration high altitude balloons out there, but the upper air program the article refers to doesn't use them, and the balloon shown in the photograph is of the variety to quickly put a few "holes" in the flight duration claim!
Watch the investor's money go BOOM!
1.4MHz???? (Score:3, Informative)
I HOPE that's a typo, because if it isn't, that's smack-dab in the middle of the AM Broadcast Band (1400kHz), and I would be furious if the FCC was auctioning off spots on a precious resource like that to a bunch of nuts with weather balloons...
Re:Where do you think they usualy go? (Score:3, Informative)
Bzzt! Wrong answer.
Take (for example) Antartica. Seeing as scientists launch approx 9,000 balloons a year from all the antarctic bases , that's a lot of ballons left lying (or floating) around. As most ballons are made of some form of plastic , they will likely remain in the environment for at least a hundred years. Animals often confuse ballons floating around for food and die.
Personally , I don't think they've a hope in hell of providing any decent , permanent coverage from ballons... unless maybe if they were tethered.
Maybe not Weather Balloons (Score:3, Informative)
Heck, even the army is doing something like this. [army.mil]
Re:Well I hate to burst your balloon but... (Score:1, Informative)
BTW, balloons burst about 2-3 hours after release, then they fall back to the ground via parachute. Granted it's a slower trip back down, but still...
I'm thinking they've taken too many pulls off of the hydrogen tank.
Check out some upper air data... [fsu.edu]
Another link... [ucar.edu]
See how many flights make it up to 110kft? [fsu.edu]
Alot more make it to 90kft... [fsu.edu]
NWS Upper-air Observations Homepage [noaa.gov]
Too lazy to log in,
wxnerd