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Day 3 - Lake Tahoe, CA to Wells, NV

Ahh Nevada, a state I can understand. California is all fast and noisy, but Nevada… such vast open spaces, and such amazing scenery.

Lazy start today, packed the SUV and was off on my way. Wonderfully clear and sunny, the internet reckoned it was -8°C outside but the car said 0°C which seemed closer to the truth; regardless it was slightly chilly but hardly unpleasant. Drove over the top and was soon on I80. Approaching the Nevada border I saw flumes alongside the freeway, from what I've found these days from the mining days.

Past Reno I thought I saw a nuclear reactor, but turns out it's a combined cycle plant and a gas power station. I stopped in at Reno to visit Wal-Mart and got thoroughly lost, but eventually emerged with clothes, pyjamas, hundreds & thousands coated chocolate donut holes, contact lens cleaner, and some dried cranberries! Just what a boy needs on the road.

Soon I was out of the...

Day 2 - Donner Pass Railfanning

Had a solid evenings sleep and woke up around 8am as my neighbour had a shower, ahh the wonders of cheap motels and noisy plumbing. Got another hours sleep and then did my morning ritual or email checking, route planning, weather forecasting, and car packing. Headed off for Truckee but first stopped at the lake to get a few photos.

 

Was a nice balmy 3°C down at the lake and it was snowing lightly when I left the motel. I pressed on for Truckee and arrived just in time to see the tail end of a container train scooting through. Never mind, there'll be heaps more, right?

I parked up in Truckee and went for a wander around, admiring such beauties as the Vandura 2500, and the "Jax" Truckee Diner.

 

I also checked out the recently overhauled spreaders that UP use to keep Donner Pass open during the winter. These are pretty serious pieces of kit with numerous adjustable ...

Day 1 - Christchurch to Lake Tahoe

Well I'm back in the USA! My journey started with a couple of days in Auckland under the careful eye of my girlfriend, Rachel, before a big goodbye and a careful squeak through the scales (.1kgs over the limit for both carry on and checked bags). Fairly uneventful flight on a massive 747-400. I had a window seat and a spare seat next to me so could try a few different sleeping positons. 12 or 13 hours later we touched down and I went through customs. The lady I got was very cold and she didn't seem to like my idea of a road trip and referred me to "secondary screening". There a young guy had a chat with me and loved my idea of a road trip, in fact in his previous life he was a biker and he started writing down a bunch of "must visit" places. He wished me luck and that was that. I collected my bag and was on my way to the rental centre.

Rental guy took a liking to me and (for a small extra fee) rustled up a true 4wd Jeep Grand Cherokee, the only one the had left. Michigan pl...

High Altitude Balloon Experiments: Part 2

(Continued from part 1 )

My first test was a total success, but I had bigger plans. Happy that I could easily track my balloon from the land, and that the transmitter was powerful enough, I set about designing version 2 of my tracker.

Version 2 had one big improvement: a GPS receiver. Now I'd be able to track it's exact latitude, longitude, and altitude. Other changes included:

An Arduino Pro microcontroller module which is vastly more powerful than the PicAxe I had used previously. It is programmed in C++ and has plenty of storage and processing power. A 10v DC/DC converter that runs the transmitter at a higher voltage, in theory increasing its output power and hence range. A new lightweight PCB, made from flexible kapton material. A buzzer that beeps very loudly once every 15 seconds, so that once it had landed I might hear it even if I couldn't find it. This turned out to be a waste of power and space. Two 1.5v AAA E...

High Altitude Balloon Experiments: Part 1

In between my usual adventures I always have about 10,000 projects on the go. Lately some of these projects have been getting rather "lofty", in a series of high altitude ballooning experiments.

My eventual goal is to attach a camera to a helium filled balloon and take photos of the earth from way up above the clouds. It's been done many times before and there is nothing new about it, but it's still fun to try, and not without many many challenges. It doesn't take an genius to work out how to tie a camera to a balloon and let it go; the challenge is to get the camera back again at the end!

Transmitter Range Testing

So for some time I've been pondering how to do this, and then one day something clicked and I started making it happen. The first thing I decided was that I needed some way of knowing where the balloon was, which meant some kind of transmitter. Without a radio license though I am fairly limited in how much power I can transmit with, and power means range...