Ancient Web: N1VG Launched Two $40 Cameras Into the Stratosphere

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

In 2006, an amateur-radio experimenter sent two bargain cameras above California and recovered pictures showing the curvature of the Earth. The truly useful part is that he wrote down nearly everything that went wrong first.

Read N1VG's 2006 Balloon Project Recap

The account is dated November 12, 2006 and signed by Scott, operating under the N1VG call sign. A longtime interest in high-altitude balloons had become practical when he developed GPS/APRS tracking hardware. The flight used a prototype Tracker2 controller, a radio, a Garmin GPS receiver, lithium AA batteries, and an insulated shipping box as the payload housing.

The two 2.1-megapixel cameras cost about $40 each. They were altered to take photographs automatically, one pointed down and one sideways, with 256-megabyte memory cards. Interference from the radio caused strange behavior during testing: the cameras might change modes or even erase their cards. His last-minute fix involved ferrite beads.

In other words, the project had precisely the mix of ingenuity and annoyance familiar to anyone who has tried to make several cheap devices cooperate.

The launch was only half the adventure

The first launch attempt in the Mojave Desert was canceled because of high wind. On the second try, the crew was told to move away from a park boundary immediately before inflation. The balloon then took off, narrowly clearing a fence, while the group followed its position with GPS and amateur-radio equipment.

As N1VG describes it, the balloon climbed past 106,000 feet, burst, and began its descent. The last received positioning reports guided the recovery party to Broadwell dry lake bed. Instead of disappearing into inaccessible mountains, the payload landed on ground they could reach by road.

The box survived, the radio was still transmitting, and the cameras had captured more than 1,100 photographs. The article is careful about the problems: one camera malfunctioned during descent, and not every hoped-for image survived. The successful photographs include high-altitude views of the coast and Channel Islands.

This is an excellent example of an engineering diary rather than a polished 'maker' highlight reel. It has component names, wiring mishaps, family members on the chase team, parking complications, and the relief of finding a box in the desert.

For a 2006 web reader, there was also the pleasure of seeing an independent experiment reach a place normally associated with expensive research hardware.

Read the full field report and follow its photo-gallery links.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.