Functional Testing of Balloon Command Receiver. SKYHOOK 1975

Raven Industries was given the task of flight testing ten command receivers. These tests were to consist of bench tests, simulated flight tests in the Raven altitude chamber, and three flight tests under actual conditions. Ten command receivers were supplied by Dr. Williamson for these tests. In addition, Dr. Williamson supplied a ground station for sending the termination commands. Additionally, a prototype digital ranging generator and readout were provided for the last flight of the series. One unit was flown as a hitch-hike on the University of Wyoming flight No. 1389. This unit operated properly during the short daytime flight. The flight was terminated early due to failure of the prime experiment. Three units were flown on Flight 1390. This was primarily a night time flight to determine cold effects on the command receivers. One unit failed to complete a command cycle due to temperature effects on the decoder circuit. The other units operated properly throughout the flight. Another was flown on Flight 1389 and two additional receivers were flown on Flight 1391. These latter units provided flight data in direct sunlight. Flight 1391 used to demonstrate the digital range read-out system developed by Dr. Williamson. The receivers and ranging system performed perfectly throughout the flight. The audio retransmission was monitored periodically throughout all of the flights with no intermodulation being noted. The original data transcribed in this report is on file at Raven Industries, Inc.