06/12/2026
Mike Morgan, NØMPM and Mike Hojnowski, KD2EAT sent me news of a great
midwest event.
The Great Plains Super Launch (GPSL), the premier balloon gathering for
amateur radio high altitude balloon enthusiasts, is pleased to announce
that our annual gathering will take place in Pella, Iowa on Friday &
Saturday, June 19 & 20, 2026. Each year GPSL is located in the Midwest,
and draws hobbyists and professionals from dozens of states across the
U.S.
The event is held at the Pella Christian High School, 300 Eagle Lane,
Pella, IA 50219.
The Friday symposium features presentations by leaders in the amateur
radio ballooning community including flight ops, tracking/telemetry
technology and student education discussions. Cost of the Friday
symposium is $25. If you would like to attend please email your name,
callsign (if you have one) and email address to Mike Morgan, NØMPM,
[email protected]. You will be sent a PayPal payment invoice.
The Saturday balloon launch event is open to all. We will be launching,
weather permitting, starting at 8am. Bring the family for an
interesting time!
There will be Pico balloons, attempting to circumnavigate the earth and
more traditional High Altitude Balloons. Some of the latter will include
amateur radio payloads. Payloads will be tracked using a variety of
protocols, including APRS, WSPR and Horus Binary. As always, the best
place to track amateur balloon launches is on
https://amateur.sondehub.org. APRS and WSPR are well known. There are
many options to receive the lesser-known Horus Binary, including
horus-gui, webhorus, and horusdemodlib.
There will be at least two payloads that amateurs in the region might
interact with. There will be a cross-band repeater flying with one
balloon. At altitude, it should had 100+ mile radius, and be reachable
by even an HT. You can transmit to it on 146.560 and receive from
446.560, no PL. You can consult https://amateur.sondehub.org for the
balloon (KD2EAT) position and altitude, if using a directional antenna.
Another flight (KE5GDB) will feature a Wenet payload. It will be
transmitting high quality imagery from the balloon during flight on
431.200. Anyone can view the images at https://ssdv.habhub.org. You can
receive wenet yourself (and contribute to the ssdv.habhub.org imagery)
by setting up a receive station. Instructions can be found from the link
above in the “How do I Receive it?” section. Note, an SDR, preamp
and yagi are advised fo wenet. There may also be an SSTV payload,
transmitting at 433.100. Plans for that are still tentative, so just
tune your SSTV receiver there during the flight and give it a try if
you’re interested.
For further information, please visit: https://superlaunch.org.
Registration for the other events have now closed but there is plenty of
room to attend the symposium.
73, Art KØAIZ
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ARRL Midwest Division
Director: Arthur I Zygielbaum, K0AIZ
[email protected]
Live tracking of radiosonde flights. Data via SondeHub Amateur. Includes weather overlay, predictions, and access to historic radiosonde flights.
