SondehuntWhen the way home was waiting for us on Monday, the forecast for the midday probe from Idar gave us reason to take a look over Koblenz, especially as we wanted to see the stream of the WWDC keynote at flynamic in Bonn in the evening.
While the sonde was on its way, the forecast predicted a landing south of Koblenz, we stationed at Vapiano and then took a short walk to the Deutsches Eck. Meanwhile the sonde fell very fast and didn’t even make it across the Rhine and landed near the A61 at Boppard.
The last position was reached quickly, but the signal of the sonde could hardly be heard, let alone decoded. An apparently nearby BOS-Funk station also littered the spectrum with TETRA, which didn’t make things any easier. Only with a mobile Yagi increased to six directors it was possible to achieve anything. When the sonde was found, it was clear why: the antenna had buried itself in the soft forest soil and the sonde body was on top of it. The small red parachute and the big balloon remains hung in a nearby tree out of reach of the pole and could not be pulled down either.