We chased a weather balloon across Montana and never found it
Details
- External ID
- 49377660
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- We chased a weather balloon across Montana and never found it
- Website domain
- radi8.dev
- Launched
- Aug. 20, 2026
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 60
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.8803763440860215
- Tags
- —
- Fetched at
- Sept. 10, 2026, 5:32 a.m.
- Updated at
- Sept. 10, 2026, 5:32 a.m.
Description
Since April, I have been working with Sam Flynn (https://drook.dev) to make this balloon payload, UpLink. We did a similar launch last year with Hack Club but this was our first independent launch.UpLink was a 491 gram payload testing the insulation properties of 3D printing filaments, while also transmitting 320x240 images over a radio link -- up from the 18x10 images last year!This is a writeup on our engineering process, mistakes made, and learning experiences. It covers:- Custom electronics designed in KiCad- Firmware design- Results from the data we received on the ground- Image transmission- Launch day logistics, and where things went wrongAll hardware, software, firmware, and CAD is available on GitHub: https://github.com/radeeyate/UpLink, licensed + certified as open source hardware: https://certification.oshwa.org/us002826.htmlIf you just want to see the images received, I put up a gallery here: https://uplink.gallery.radi8.dev/If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, let me know. I'm happy to answer anything!
Enrichment
- Theme
- interactive simulations and creative experiments
- Vertical
- —
- Function
- —
- Audience
- —
- AI stance
- —
- Project type
- Hobby / open-source project
- Normalized one-liner
- —
- Manually corrected
- False
Could you build this?
No This is a physical high-altitude weather balloon project testing 3D printing filament insulation and radio tracking in the real world, involving hardware and physical pursuit.
What it would actually take: Requires custom physical hardware: GPS tracker, radio telemetry transmitters (e.g., APRS or LoRa), microcontrollers (STM32/ESP32), battery thermal management, and 3D-printed enclosure payloads. Operational challenges include FAA Part 101 regulatory compliance, radio licensing, atmospheric trajectory prediction modeling (NOAA wind models), and rugged physical recovery logistics across remote terrain.
Discussion
20 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: U4B tracking device, Styrofoam boxes, Ham radio protocols (7MHz transmitters)
Concerns raised: U4B not reliable enough for tracking, Hydrogen filling safety risks vs helium cost, Styrofoam boxes come in predefined sizes limiting payload efficiency, Styrofoam expensive compared to custom solutions
Feature requests: Groups or clubs to join for high altitude balloon launches, Better payload layout flexibility for custom designs
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one — 55 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #14 of 56 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 271 days after the earliest competitor.
- Weather balloon to the stratosphere with a Raspberry Pi computer · hn · 2026-08-10 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.45
- I turned algae into a bio-altimeter and put it on a weather balloon · hn · 2025-11-22 · 142 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- I designed my own 3D printer motherboard · hn · 2025-12-06 · 127 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- I made alchemical-cosmological PCB badges · hn · 2026-08-05 · 24 upvotes · similarity 0.40
- 3D print Z reinforcement via injected loops · hn · 2026-06-09 · 66 upvotes · similarity 0.40
- PIrateRF · hn · 2026-02-17 · 33 upvotes · similarity 0.39
- I made open source, zero power PCB hackathon badges · hn · 2026-04-04 · 158 upvotes · similarity 0.38
- Experiments with Weather Data · hn · 2026-07-29 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.37
Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.