Mission 41 is coming soon!

Can you believe it? We’ll be kicking off our 13th year of Parachute Mobile on June 18 during Mission 41. I Just want say thank you to all those that have followed along and have made QSOs with us while descending from the sky’s above Byron, California. And of course, it’s been such a privilege to have such an illustrious Ground Crew prepping us up, completing our safety checks, and handling many other tasks.

Last year, Michael Wright, K6MFW, our video streaming guru, made some upgrades to his video setup. Mostly home brew, but certainly more streamline. We had to relocate our setup location at the Drop Zone, (DZ). Up until last year we used half of a open patio area for our operation. Actually, a few years ago walls were installed so it was nice being shaded from the afternoon sun and the Byron winds. Unfortunately, we were spoiled. Due to further upgrades and renovations we’ve had to move to another section of the DZ that is a bit more cramped.

Some of you may have already heard of Carlos Felix, KD9OLN. He’s a skydiver that jumps out of Chicagoland Skydiving Center in Rochelle, IL. He’s posted several YouTube videos that captures the excitement and adventures of his 2 meter and HF jumps. I recently emailed Carlos to let him know that we had a mission coming and pondered the thought of attempting to make a parachute-to-parachute QSO. It didn’t take hi, but a second to say he’s in. This would be quite an achievement. We are both under the control of the schedule and really can’t modify it much. Busines is busines at the DZs so trying to get the timing just right might be tricky. Plus, Calos is 2 hours behind me and 1,743 miles away. Can we do it? We’ll see. This Saturday, 5-28-22, at 9:30 a.m. Pacific time, Sean Klechack, W9FFF, a very popular YouTuber that goes by Ham Radio Dude, will interview both myself and Carlos and have us touch on some of the intricate aspects of combining ham radio with skydiving.

Sorry, there will be no Echo/Link or Allstar for the next mission. Due to an annoying simplex repeater that has cropped up in the last couple years we’ve had to move our 2 meter QSO frequency to 147.570 simplex. We will also be using an HF frequency of 14.289 MHZ. Yes, that is a strange choice for a frequency. Since we almost instinctively always chose frequencies that end with a zero or a 5, we hope that this frequency will be left alone for our contacts.

Come back now and then for any updates. You can also find us on Facebook.

-Rob, KC6TYD

Mission 41 !!!!

Scheduled for June 18, 2022.

More information coming soon.