We
arrived in Hutchinson, KS
Thursday afternoon. Six of us from Grand Island,
NE were representing CNNSP. Those six were
Jeff (K0JLR), Caleb, Jack (WY0F), Arlene, and myself
(KC0MWM). Dinner that evening was at The Grand Slam located in the Grand
Prairie Hotel where the conference was being held. Friday’s conference was full
of interesting presentations on a variety of balloon related topics. All of the
presentations were thought-provoking and educational. Some of the latest tools,
toys, and tricks were shared with the participants. We all gathered for dinner
Friday evening at a locally owned Mexican restaurant, The Anchor Inn. The
remainder of Friday was spent preparing for Saturday morning’s launch. We
arrived at Lyons-Rice Municipal
Airport and immediately began
getting the balloon ready to fill. Payloads were powered up and checked out,
however Jack had some problems with his new radio not wanting to transmit and
ultimately ended up putting the PocketTracker in its
place. We released the balloon at 8:47 CDT
along with the Tulsa, OK
group, ORB. The chase took a leisurely pace due to the seasonal winds aloft
being so light. Predictions were placing the touchdown position less than 20
miles from the launch point, so needless to say we weren’t in much of a hurry.
After a stop at the local convenience store we headed east for a short while,
then north. We noticed the balloon was tracking more north and west of the
prediction, so we started to work our way back to the west and stopped on the
side of a gravel road to wait for the burst. Interference from one of the
capsules was making it difficult to get position updates from the KC0MWM-11
payload. We saw six of the balloons at one time when they were at varying
altitudes, most above 60,000 feet. Ours burst at 88,000 feet and began its
descent. We were able to position ourselves to see the payloads touchdown about
a half of a mile away. Arlene and I went to see who owned the land, while the
others made preparations for the recovery. After knocking on a few doors, I got
a phone number for Kirk & Shelley Peverley, the
landowners. I called Kirk and told him what we were up to, and got permission
to retrieve our equipment from his field. Zack (W0ZC) had showed up to help us
with recovery and joined Jeff, Caleb, Jack, and I on the hike through a milo field, plum thickets, dry creek bed and open field to
retrieve the payloads. When we arrived at the coordinates we found them in good
condition, but severely tangled, along with almost the entire mass of the
balloon still attached. Looks like it might be time to build one of those
balloon release devices. When we
returned to the rest of the group a truck pulled up with one of the local
residents, who we quickly found out to be one of the landowners. Shelley
stopped by to invite us to the Methodist
Church in Geneseo, KS
for lunch. It seems they had prepared a large quantity of food in anticipation
of some “bikers” coming through, and hadn’t seen near the quantity of riders
they were expecting. The majority of us met at the church for some good food
and post recovery stories. Thanks to Shelley
and the folks at the Methodist Church! GPSL 2006 was a great success. I agreed
to host GPSL 2007 here in Grand Island,
NE. Wish us luck!
