BACAR set to launch on Saturday 8 August

South Africa's long awaited BACAR flight will take place on 8 August 2009.

BACAR (Balloon Carrying Amateur Radio) is planned to be launched between 08:00 and 08:15 and with a multi-payload which should be of interest to radio amateurs and shortwave listeners around the country.

The launch site has not been finalized but will be announced during the week. Members of the BACAR team are visiting various sites to establish the best site that will provide the launch team access to Gauteng repeaters to enable commentary of the launch activity to be broadcast on 7 082 kHz and streaming on echolink and on the web.

The other problem associated with selecting a launch site is compliance with air traffic regulations. Once a suitable launch site has been selected, high level weather conditions such as the wind speed and direction will be determined in order to file a flight plan with air traffic control.

The payload includes an APRS system operating on 144,800 MHz which will be switched on 2 minutes before launch and allow APRS stations to follow the flight of BACAR.
The callsign of the APR beacon is ZS6SAT.

A VHF beacon on 144,825 MHz will be operating every 2 minutes for the first 30 minutes of the flight on voice, MCW and CW, for the following 119 minutes every 5 minutes and then revert to every 2 minutes.

A 40 metre beacon will be operating on 7 022 kHz with telemetry information every one minute.

The information includes the inside and outside temperature and the pressure in millibar.

Visit www.amsatsa.org.za for more information on the flight.
Commentary will be carried on 7 082 kHz, on 2 metres in Gauteng and on echolink and webcasting. More information will be in SARL news on 2 August.

Radio amateurs submitting a telemetry line of the 40 metre transmission together with details of their location will be awarded a BACAR certificate of participation. Telemetry details must be sent to bacar@sarl.org.za on the day of the launch.

Source: The South African Radio League