Black Rock 2014

As some of you may know, each year for the past several, I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to volunteer my time and expertise to a couple of classes at the University of Washington, one of which makes a trip down to the Black Rock Desert in Nevada each year to launch high power amateur rockets.

As usual, the trip happened this March, and as usual, I’m delayed in getting around to sorting the pictures and getting a blog post up about it.

It’s about 13 hours of driving each way, so I prefer to split it up into two days, but myself and the course instructor ended up leaving the day before the main group, and arrived to make camp a bit early, but first we met the local ranger at the entrance to the playa.

DSC06702

A short time later, we headed out onto the playa to find where we were going to make camp. Once found, it seemed that the instructor had foolishly packed his camping gear underneath nearly all of the rest of the equipment, so we spent some time helping to unload the truck.

DSC06710After which, I worked on unloading the motorcycles from the trailer I pulled down with my Outback, and set up the antenna mast.

IMG_0455 IMG_0458 IMG_0459Once things were pretty well settled, a buddy and I hopped on the bikes and rode over to the eastern side of the Playa where there’s the Trego Hot Springs. Originally this spring was found during the construction of the railroad, and the ditch was dug to direct water away.

IMG_0472 IMG_0474And, as usual, the stargazing that evening was phenomenal. The nearest tiny town being miles away, and the nearest real “City” being hundreds of miles away, the light pollution is essentially non-existant.

DSC06717The next morning brought launch preparations, and the associated launches.

IMG_1779 IMG_1796 IMG_0584

Including some work from a small hill near the side of the playa for an attempt at receiving telemetry signals during different portions of the flights.

IMG_0489The next day brought with it a Rockoon flight (Rocket launched from a Balloon), and several other rocket flights.

Blackrock2014 760 blackrock2014 1417 Blackrock2014 676 Blackrock2014 932

Followed by an evening of long exposure photos…

Blackrock2014 1080 Blackrock2014 1075

Including a handful of night launches (of rather small rockets with LEDs on them).

IMG_0896

And to finish off the slideshow, here’s some random shots of the area, camp, and the group.

Blackrock2014 1043 IMG_0926 IMG_4778 IMG_4841

And finally, I even took a timelapse over the course of a day with a Raspberry Pi and Camera that I had attached to the top of my antenna mast.

This entry was posted in Electronics, Ham Radio, Life, Random, Technology, Vehicles. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *