Category Archives: radiosonde

Automated Radiosonde Tracking Via Open Source

Posted on February 10, 2019 by Fernando Gomes

Meteorological organisations across the world launch weather balloons on a regular basis as a part of their work in predicting whether or not it will rain on the weekend. Their payloads are called radiosondes, and these balloons deliver both telemetry and location data throughout their flightpath. Hobbyists around the globe have devoted time and effort to tracking and decoding these signals, and now it’s possible to do it all automatically, thanks to Radiosonde Auto RX.

The basis of the project is the RTL-SDR, everyone’s favourite low-cost software defined radio receiver. In this case, software is used to first hunt for …read more

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Posted in radio hacks, radiosonde, RTL-SDR, RTLSDR, weather balloon | Leave a comment

Radiosondes: Getting Data from Upstairs

Posted on December 8, 2017 by Fernando Gomes

Ever since I first learned about radiosondes as a kid, I’ve been fascinated by them. To my young mind, the idea that weather bureaus around the world would routinely loft instrument-laden packages high into the atmosphere to measure temperature, pressure, and winds aloft seemed extravagant. And the idea that this telemetry package, having traveled halfway or more to space, could crash land in a field near my house so that I could recover it and take it apart, was an intoxicating thought.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the woods over the intervening years, but I’ve never seen a …read more

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Posted in helium, hydrogen, misc hacks, radiosonde, sonde, telemetry, thermometer, weather, weather balloon | Leave a comment