Balloon Mystery Solved!

[Bait O' Eggs]

Did the instructions read:


This is a long range ballon that will need to be refilled to complete its journey. The balloon fitted with a hot air detecting sensor will set down temporarily to be refilled. Most likely the house it lands at will be a place that the owner is full of hot air and refilling will be no problem. Please fill up the balloon and let it complete its mission, thanks for the pit stop refilling Gus" signed NOAA

:shocked: :shocked: :shocked:

Gus have you tried to shoot it down, or did you run out of ammo trying to hit it? :tongue: Even NOAA didnt anticipate the high pressure of hot air around your house and hung it up in the tree when it got pushed off course by the hot air.

[24 on/ 48 off]

Did you call NOAA?

--spud-- :smile:

[Gus Orviston]

BOE,,,,they giving you longer breaks now at McDonalds?

Trying to contact NOAA via email. They want these units back to rebuild them...only 20% ever get returned.

gus

[Gus Orviston]

Okay,,,, early this spring before the leaves on the trees started filling out, a large balloon with a box below it landed in my Ash tree. The tree is huge so getting the balloon out of the tops of the tree has been my white elephant of recent days.

I just had to know what is in the box...being up about 45 feet it has just been too hard to get to. However, today I caught a glimpse of print on the side of the box...ooooo I hadn't thought of scoping it with binocs yet.

I grabbed my binos and crawled up into the kids play structure and nestled in next to the play binoculars and got a good view of box.

Mystery solved.
The box is a present from NOAA...too funny, anyway it turns out it is a weather balloon carrying a Radiosonide. There are electrical wires dangling out the side of the box I can read the side that describes its operation and return mailing instructions. Anybody ever find one of these?

http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~hopkins/wx-inst/wxi-raob.htm
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/er/gyx/weather_balloons.htm

gus

[ 07-17-2003, 12:55 PM: Message edited by: Gus Orviston ]

[Miss B Haven]

Come on Gus, just shinny on up there. It's kinda like water right? Anything over 6 feet's all the same. 10 feet, 45 feet what the heck, broken necks don't really hurt much I hear. [img]graemlins/eek13.gif[/img]

If ya don't I'm coming over with my Stihl and I'll help ya get it down! :shocked: :grin:

Hmm.. maybe you could get one of those black helicopters to give ya a hand.

[Gus Orviston]

I didn't even have to read the reply before I started laughing that you or BOE responded. Pavlov's dog or something.

anyway...way too old to climb that tree...I tried and got up to where a 14 year old would monkey up several feet and decided I quit doing that when I was 25. :whazzup: A bit older than 14 of course but it took until I was 25 to realize I couldn't do it anymore. :depressed:

I got a turbo charge Jonsered with a 40" bar that would put the tree to rest but I think I will wait for it to collapse on its own... too many projects now to cut more firewood, especially since I have a gas fireplace :smile: