Another sunny day, and a probe landing not to far away from Stuttgart. After ensuring by web that the probe did not land in a forest, I went to Schorndorf by car. Pictures of the terrain showed a high voltage line and a river in the predicted way of the probe. The web application could however not give any indication if the probe made it over the high voltage line or was hanging in it.
When nearing Schorndorf, I could hear the probe in the radio. The probe had not dropped into the river. I went to a sewage water treatment plan to crank up the computer and get a GPS fix. Nearing the gate of the plant, I spotted a white plastic bag like object — it was indeed the parachute that had not fully opened. The first probe I found without the reception of the probe’s GPS fix. I followed the thread that was actually severed by cyclists who did not understand what they had just run over. I went up an embankment and then down through nettles near to a river. Here I discovered the probe hanging on a tree branch almost in the water.
When I recovered it, I heard somebody phoning on the other side of the river and mentioning a probe — another fellow probe hunter. I hailed him, and told him that I found the probe. He then told me that he would make his way over to me to see where exactly I had recovered the probe. 10 minutes later, and he had arrived. We had an easy afternoon chat. He lives nearby, is a radio ham, and his name is Alexander (DB4TA). He was kind enough to share the pinout of the RS41 probe with me.
Much later, I went back home to Suttgart, but not without a little detour that brought me to the probe in Leinfelden that I had discovered but not retrieved about a week earlier.
