"Three countries—North Korea, Yemen and the UK—restrict transmissions from balloons in their airspace, so the community has integrated geofencing software into the tracking devices. The balloons still overfly the countries, but do not transmit their positions over their airspace."
That's an interesting collection of countries. Why I wonder the UK and not other Western countries?
It's not that you cannot transmit from a high altitude balloon over the UK, but you are very restricted in transmit power and frequencies. My son and a friend of his built a Muon detector and sent it up under a high altitude balloon as a school science project. We tracked and chased it for 200 miles across England and recovered it eventually, a little the worse for wear. His was set up to transmit location, altitude, and muon flux in case we didn't recover it. It had three radios - two low bitrate RTTY transmitters at very low power (10mW?) and GPRS which was set up to only switch on after landing to help recovery (it's not legal to transmit GPRS while airborne). The RTTY turned out to be very reliable, even at 50 mile range, and especially with other HAB hobbists kindly relaying data back via the Internet. This was especially useful to locate the landing site when the balloon outran us and dropped below our radio horizon. The GPRS never worked, but that may have been because it landed in a pigsty and was attacked by the pig. Anyway, there's quite an active UK high altitude balloon community.
The UK has some strange leftover laws about radio communication. Recently there was a post here about their system of TV detector vans to collect license fees for public television (something most sensible countries have put into their normal taxes a long time ago). And the UK for example is also missing from Live ATC because listening to (open, unencrypted) ATC communications is illegal there.
If you send a balloon around the world, would you really care if the North Koreans get their knickers in a knot over some telemetry? What are they going to do, ask for extradition?
They might shoot it down but I'd personally consider that a badge of honor. Pissing off the worst dictatorship in the world and getting them to waste at least 50k$ on a jet sortie for a few hundred bucks worth of hobby balloon sounds like money well spent.
I'm not into ballooning but I'm surprised they actually obey this. The UK is another matter of course.
I'm based in the UK and have a passive interest in amateur radio. If I had to guess, it isn't outright forbidden, just a licensed activity. Maybe the license isn't easy to get or widely granted?
You can from what I understand transmit RF from balloons - https://ukhas.org.uk/doku.php?id=start has lots of info. There are limitations on what frequencies and power you can transmit at, iirc the power is around 10mW.
People keep saying a lightweight craft under six pounds poses no threat to commercial aviation, but is that really true?
I doubt a balloon with a circuit board could cause an engine to fail, but there are lots of sensitive measurement devices, like a pitot tube, that I imagine could fail if a balloon hit it. (For reference, Aeroperu 603 was brought down by tape that wasn't removed from the plane.)
I'm all about hobbyists hobbying, but it does seem like there should be at least some so of registration system so we know what people are launching into shared airspace.
Would actually be quite impressive if it’s confirmed that NORAD is able to track and target a balloon/payload weighing between 11 grams-6 lbs, and flying between 30k-40k feet altitude.
Mobile and fixed systems like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea-based_X-band_Radar exist around the US and are reported to be able to pickup baseball sized objects from the other side of the continent (and that's what they claimed a decade ago before the upgrades).
They're just typically not used with such precision because of the sheer amount of false positives they'd generate and how little concern there typically is about something so small.
I don't think anyone really knows exactly the fidelity of what NORAD can see. And anyone on here that claims to know is almost definitely full of shit.
But as Donald Rumsfeld famously said: "we can destroy a bomb placed under a pedestrian footbridge from 6,000 miles away without destroying the bridge."
if it's metal foil or metallized foil it could have a quite large radar cross section, more so if it's carrying a corner reflector to make radar tracking easier
> Would actually be quite impressive if it’s confirmed that NORAD is able to track and target a balloon/payload weighing between 11 grams-6 lbs, and flying between 30k-40k feet altitude.
Is it really impressive? Modern stealth fighters have a radar signature smaller than small birds.
The weight of the object doesn't matter though. All that matters is ita radar cross-section, which can be through the roof even from a one gram piece of metal foil (which would give it much more total radar cross-section than an entire F-35!).
Yeesh. This guy is not helping the future of his hobby, which I'm guessing is pretty precarious right now:
“I tried contacting our military and the FBI—and just got the runaround—to try to enlighten them on what a lot of these things probably are. And they’re going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down,” says Ron Meadows, the founder of Scientific Balloon Solutions (SBS), a Silicon Valley company that makes purpose-built pico balloons for hobbyists, educators and scientists.
In other news:
Biden wants ‘sharper rules’ on unknown aerial objects
2.1 An unmanned free balloon shall not be operated without appropriate authorization from the State from which the launch is made.
2.2 An unmanned free balloon, other than a light balloon used exclusively for meteorological purposes and operated in the manner prescribed by the appropriate authority, shall not be operated across the territory of another State without appropriate authorization from the other State concerned.
2.3 The authorization referred to in 2.2 shall be obtained prior to the launching of the balloon if there is reasonable expectation, when planning the operation, that the balloon may drift into airspace over the territory of another State. Such authorization may be obtained for a series of balloon flights or for a particular type of recurring flight, e.g. atmospheric research balloon flights.
2.4 An unmanned free balloon shall be operated in accordance with conditions specified by the State of Registry and the State(s) expected to be overflown.
---
Section 2.2 and 2.3 is applicable here. That they didn't know, and the government didn't know, and this wasn't a exclusively used as a weather balloon... there are possibly some things that the hobbyists did that may not have been completely within the bounds of the treaty.
> Does the government have the right o destroy whatever it wants in the air? Could this club sue for the cost of the balloon?
I assume the reason nobody seems to be eager to claim these downed balloons is fear of their liability for flying unregistered, transponder-less hazards to other flights.
Not only does the government have the right to destroy it, but so does anyone else.
There's no reasonable expectation of recovery when you launch a balloon calibrated to go globe-trotting.
It's basically no different than the person who abandoned a mattress at my apartment block's dumpster. It's littering. They're giving it away, they're not expecting to be able to come back for it later.
Furthermore, nobody has a right to unregistered, unmanned, long duration balloon flight. Such a right would only exist if a state constructed it for its citizens. (and it would end at their boundaries)
I think it's cool that in practice people have been able to do so, but it seems the cool times are coming to an end.
I don't think you should be downvoted for asking a question. I'm sure there are legalities we don't understand, so it's legitimate to ask about them. I'd also like to read a response from an informed source.
It's not quite the right question to ask. The government is going to destroy whatever it wants to in the air, and there's only ever gonna be potential consequences (of a diplomatic nature) if it accidentally results in the injury/death of an innocent party.
The Supreme Court is not going to intervene here in matters of military discretion, and no one is going to be able to sue here over this.
> Does the government have the right to destroy whatever it wants in the air?
Hashtag-its-complicated.
To a first approximation: no. The US scrambling a fighter to blast a plane full of people out of the sky would be a huge mess and incur significant lawsuits.
Refining the approximation: militaries accepts the burden of responsibility to protect their people from threats, including airborne threats. Airborne threats are already traveling with significant potential (and often kinetic) energies so they are default-threatening. So militaries have wide discretion to presume an aircraft with no transponder is hostile and respond appropriately. A lawsuit on that topic would land somewhere between "no compensation" and "Sorry kids; Uncle Sam had to blow up your project to protect mom and apple pie; here's the money for the cost of the mylar and radio parts."
At the boundary-limit of the responsibilities, you can find disasters like the tragedy of Korean Airlines (KAL) flight 007, where Soviet planes failed to establish contact with a commercial airliner and shot it out of the sky.
I’ve been talking to my five year old about weather balloons lately and he’s interested in launching one of his own to try to get a picture of the Earth’s curvature. Can anyone recommend resources on this topic? Surely there are hobby groups around but I must not be searching for the right combo of keywords - haven’t found anything.
These balloons don't seem to match the, however brief, descriptions of what was shot down. Also, do they not have mechanisms that report the balloon's position? Seems like a lot of speculation.
I know it says a lot that's not great about the US military, etc.., but if I was a hobbyist, I'd wear the fact that the USAF shot my amateur craft down as such a badge of honor.
Was in a group where we launched a couple of weather balloons back in undergrad. One we recovered and got cool pictures from[1]. The other one never returned. I now choose to believe it was shot down by the USAF back in 2010.
As a long-time RC hobbyist who designs, builds and flies small, short-range battery-powered foam aerobatic planes and gliders for fun and relaxation, it sounds like yet another engineering-centric, technical hobby is about to have their fun ruined by lack-of-understanding, politically-driven performative "safety theater" and media-fueled runaway paranoia.
> “I tried contacting our military and the FBI—and just got the runaround—to try to enlighten them on what a lot of these things probably are. And they’re going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down,” says Ron Meadows, the founder of Scientific Balloon Solutions (SBS)
Way to overreact, USA. It feels like they're just looking for excuses to escalate the situation with China. As if what's going on already in the rest of the world wasn't enough.
I called this whole thing as a joke a few days ago, glad that I was proved right.
Of course that the propaganda machine won't touch the Air Force (or the US military more generally) not even with a feather, it's full "the Emperor's clothes are all so wonderful!"-mode.
I'm not sure what the prorated cost of the fighter jets and crew to shoot these things down was, but I have seen multiple news reports that the cost of the missiles was around $450k apiece. In at least one incident, two missiles were needed after the first missed.
[+] [-] hoppyhoppy2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jhbadger|3 years ago|reply
That's an interesting collection of countries. Why I wonder the UK and not other Western countries?
[+] [-] mhandley|3 years ago|reply
Edit: I uploaded video from the flight here: https://youtu.be/4jCU6kVOmc4
[+] [-] t0mas88|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kawfey|3 years ago|reply
Yemen and NK ban amateur radio outright, with very few exceptions for things like DXpeditions or royalty.
No other countries specifically call out a prohibition of airborne amateur radio operation; either they explicitly allow it or they don't specify.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23803850
[PDF] https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0026/82637/a...
[+] [-] wkat4242|3 years ago|reply
They might shoot it down but I'd personally consider that a badge of honor. Pissing off the worst dictatorship in the world and getting them to waste at least 50k$ on a jet sortie for a few hundred bucks worth of hobby balloon sounds like money well spent.
I'm not into ballooning but I'm surprised they actually obey this. The UK is another matter of course.
[+] [-] jamescun|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anfractuosity|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] traceroute66|3 years ago|reply
Pretty much the missing word here is ... UNLICENSED.
[+] [-] dylan604|3 years ago|reply
probably because the gov't hates competition.
[+] [-] nostromo|3 years ago|reply
I doubt a balloon with a circuit board could cause an engine to fail, but there are lots of sensitive measurement devices, like a pitot tube, that I imagine could fail if a balloon hit it. (For reference, Aeroperu 603 was brought down by tape that wasn't removed from the plane.)
I'm all about hobbyists hobbying, but it does seem like there should be at least some so of registration system so we know what people are launching into shared airspace.
[+] [-] arwhatever|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TkTech|3 years ago|reply
They're just typically not used with such precision because of the sheer amount of false positives they'd generate and how little concern there typically is about something so small.
[+] [-] VWWHFSfQ|3 years ago|reply
But as Donald Rumsfeld famously said: "we can destroy a bomb placed under a pedestrian footbridge from 6,000 miles away without destroying the bridge."
So really, who knows.
[+] [-] kragen|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kylehotchkiss|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] outworlder|3 years ago|reply
Is it really impressive? Modern stealth fighters have a radar signature smaller than small birds.
[+] [-] CydeWeys|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asdfadsfgfdda|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bagels|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] justin66|3 years ago|reply
“I tried contacting our military and the FBI—and just got the runaround—to try to enlighten them on what a lot of these things probably are. And they’re going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down,” says Ron Meadows, the founder of Scientific Balloon Solutions (SBS), a Silicon Valley company that makes purpose-built pico balloons for hobbyists, educators and scientists.
In other news:
Biden wants ‘sharper rules’ on unknown aerial objects
https://apnews.com/article/biden-politics-united-states-gove...
[+] [-] googlryas|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shagie|3 years ago|reply
https://www.icao.int/Meetings/anconf12/Document%20Archive/an...
Appendix 4 - Unmanned free balloons
2.1 An unmanned free balloon shall not be operated without appropriate authorization from the State from which the launch is made.
2.2 An unmanned free balloon, other than a light balloon used exclusively for meteorological purposes and operated in the manner prescribed by the appropriate authority, shall not be operated across the territory of another State without appropriate authorization from the other State concerned.
2.3 The authorization referred to in 2.2 shall be obtained prior to the launching of the balloon if there is reasonable expectation, when planning the operation, that the balloon may drift into airspace over the territory of another State. Such authorization may be obtained for a series of balloon flights or for a particular type of recurring flight, e.g. atmospheric research balloon flights.
2.4 An unmanned free balloon shall be operated in accordance with conditions specified by the State of Registry and the State(s) expected to be overflown.
---
Section 2.2 and 2.3 is applicable here. That they didn't know, and the government didn't know, and this wasn't a exclusively used as a weather balloon... there are possibly some things that the hobbyists did that may not have been completely within the bounds of the treaty.
There are also things like:
FAA guidance - https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/atc_html...
[+] [-] pengaru|3 years ago|reply
I assume the reason nobody seems to be eager to claim these downed balloons is fear of their liability for flying unregistered, transponder-less hazards to other flights.
[+] [-] bdcravens|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] markjenkinswpg|3 years ago|reply
There's no reasonable expectation of recovery when you launch a balloon calibrated to go globe-trotting.
It's basically no different than the person who abandoned a mattress at my apartment block's dumpster. It's littering. They're giving it away, they're not expecting to be able to come back for it later.
Furthermore, nobody has a right to unregistered, unmanned, long duration balloon flight. Such a right would only exist if a state constructed it for its citizens. (and it would end at their boundaries)
I think it's cool that in practice people have been able to do so, but it seems the cool times are coming to an end.
[+] [-] karaterobot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rimintil|3 years ago|reply
Plus, who wouldn't be proud to be able to claim "I launched something that was shot down by an F-22!"?
[+] [-] CydeWeys|3 years ago|reply
The Supreme Court is not going to intervene here in matters of military discretion, and no one is going to be able to sue here over this.
[+] [-] shadowgovt|3 years ago|reply
Hashtag-its-complicated.
To a first approximation: no. The US scrambling a fighter to blast a plane full of people out of the sky would be a huge mess and incur significant lawsuits.
Refining the approximation: militaries accepts the burden of responsibility to protect their people from threats, including airborne threats. Airborne threats are already traveling with significant potential (and often kinetic) energies so they are default-threatening. So militaries have wide discretion to presume an aircraft with no transponder is hostile and respond appropriately. A lawsuit on that topic would land somewhere between "no compensation" and "Sorry kids; Uncle Sam had to blow up your project to protect mom and apple pie; here's the money for the cost of the mylar and radio parts."
At the boundary-limit of the responsibilities, you can find disasters like the tragedy of Korean Airlines (KAL) flight 007, where Soviet planes failed to establish contact with a commercial airliner and shot it out of the sky.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ceejayoz|3 years ago|reply
Almost certainly not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...
[+] [-] tshaddox|3 years ago|reply
Oh yeah?! Him and what army?!
> The U.S. Army.
Oh that's a good army.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] throwawaysleep|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lukewrites|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bmitc|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runjake|3 years ago|reply
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiosonde
2. https://sondehub.org/
[+] [-] bigmattystyles|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m3kw9|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bonyt|3 years ago|reply
[1]: https://imgur.com/a/1IAEBQs
[+] [-] karaterobot|3 years ago|reply
Is this 6 pound rule up to date with the weight of actual surveillance and broadcast equipment? Feels like you could do a lot with 6 lbs.
[+] [-] mrandish|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pastacacioepepe|3 years ago|reply
Way to overreact, USA. It feels like they're just looking for excuses to escalate the situation with China. As if what's going on already in the rest of the world wasn't enough.
[+] [-] idlewords|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jFriedensreich|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] paganel|3 years ago|reply
Of course that the propaganda machine won't touch the Air Force (or the US military more generally) not even with a feather, it's full "the Emperor's clothes are all so wonderful!"-mode.
[+] [-] arbuge|3 years ago|reply