Thirty two campers traveled from all over the world to Thornton, Colorado in June to attend the annual Americas wide camp for amateur radio operators aged 15 to 25 called Youth On The Air. Jack McElroy, KM4ZIA, has been the leader of the YOTA balloon launch team since he was 14 years old at the camp's first in person event in the Americas.
In 2022, Newsline shared Jack's story of one of his personal balloons becoming the closest any amateur radio balloon has been to the South Pole. At this year's YOTA camp, the youth team in cooperation with Edge of Space Sciences launched a high altitude balloon, tracked it by APRS, and brought back video from near space after reaching a height of 96,600 feet. But, thunderstorms prevented the launch of the two pico balloons scheduled for that afternoon.
Instead, the balloons were transported to NIST radio station WWV in Fort Collins the next day, where the campers were taking a tour of the facility and operated portable stations. The wide open spaces and clear sky at WWV proved to be a great launch site for these balloons as they started the longest journey of any YOTA Americas balloons yet. At the time of recording this edition of Newsline, one balloon is flying over Hawaii and is closing in on an entire orbit around the Earth, while the other balloon made it to western Iran before returning to the ground.
Jack told Newsline, "This all would not have been possible without the curiosity and efforts of the campers, for they were the ones assembling, balancing, and launching the balloons. I hope that through experiences like this, youth can be inspired to bring their amateur radio expertise into areas that they never thought possible, from research projects to future careers." The balloon launch was sponsored by the North Fulton Amateur Radio League. You can follow the trek of these balloons on WSPRNET.ORG under KM4ZIA and on APRS.FI under WØY-1 and WØY-11.
