Today, members of the Habex team got together to do some "Pre-experiments" and final construction in preparation of next weeks test launch. The day turned out to be exceptionally beneficial with much accomplished. The culmination of the day was launching the balloon from the Sci-Bono roof and performing some experiments. On the balloon APRS was running and data was pulled and overlaid via a KLM file onto Google Earth shown below. Look further below for many more photos of the day. There are images of the various boards, balloon, Parachute and more. For larger photos, click the images below. Enjoy

	OK, here we have the main circuit boards. Brian, ZS6BNM, designed and built most of these circuits as well as the boards. Top left to bottom right: - APRS unit. This went up on the balloon today for testing. Temperature sensing board with sensor on for inside case. Pressure sensor HF Beacon Processor and data management board. Temperature sensor for out side package. This will connect to the main temperature board detailed above Brian is busy putting together documentation on all of these boards. He will probably publish most of this after the launch. He is just too busy at present.
	Top left to Bottom right: - In this photo on the left side is the balloon plug. This is what fits into the balloon opening shown in the next photo. Fortunately we found out the plug was too small but for the test we made do. However, Francois (ZR6COI) will be busy making 2 more bigger ones this week ;-) The guys working and chatting on the various projects. Far left photo in the photo, Andre ZS6CQ (Software and data logging) and Glynn, ZS6GLN Last photo, Francois ZS6BUU and Chris looking at and discussing the new HAMNET south flight box fully kitted with HF, VHF, UHF and APRS tracking
	Now on the roof, it was time to fit the plug and start filling the balloon.
	Here the balloon is slowly starting to be filled. It was quite amazing how big this balloon actually is. Last photo here is lift off.Here the balloon is slowly starting to be filled. It was quite amazing how big this balloon actually is. Last photo here is lift off.
	One perspective of the balloon from the ground level
	The packages being tested for the day. Two main items needed to be tested, firstly the pressure gauge and secondly the APRS. For the pressure sensor, Brian rigged the output into his multimeter which could log the voltage in 50m/s intervals. In the middle photo you can see the pressure sensor sticking out. In the other package, was the APRS unit. Tests were done on the ascent rate. 50 sections of 1,6 meters were measured out. A number of "free hand" launches were done to see how quickly the balloon went up to this length. The average was 14 sec. With a simple calculation: - 1.6m X 50 lengths = 80m 80 divided by 14 seconds = 5.7 meters per second 5.7 meters X 60 seconds X 60 minutes = 20.571m In the hour the balloon will be flying, it will reach 20km's !!! This was however based on the packages used and still need to be weighed and further calculations done.
	Here we have a street level view of the flight.
	Here is a view of the team and some of the learners that were in attendance today.
	The above photos just did not seem to do the actual view justice. It was time to get another perspective. In the top photo on the left, you can see the balloon just lifting off from the Sci-Bono deck.
	Here is Brian with his lap top downloading the pressure data from his multimeter.
	Now, unfortunately, no one brought a scale along with them. How do we base our datum's. One simple solution: - We took a brick and attached it to the balloon. Then believe it or not, Stan, one of the school teachers had a hammer and chisel with him. The guys slowly chiseled away the brick until the balloon hung still without rising or sinking. That brick is going home with Chris to be weighed :-) Anyone attending the launch may in actual fact see the same brick being used to balance the balloon before launch next week.
	Here are two parachutes. Tests on the left one proved very successful. Look further down.
	Here we threw the parachute over the edge of the building (with no one below of course). These are photos of the number of tests we did. Again, times were taken and slight modifications will be done as it was falling a bit too fast.