The probe landed and as I could see from the database at www.radiosondy.info, nobody seemed to be interested in it and had collected it. With 15 km distance, the landing area was close. As the predicted landing point was within the lake and the surrounding area was full of trees, I had no big hopes. I was in the mood for a walk, so I took the car, went to a nearby parking lot and walked the rest of the way. Nearing the Bärenschlössle, a beer garden, I received a signal. People were dozing and enjoying the last sun rays of the setting sun. I took a seat on a bench nearby, cranked up my laptop, received the probe and decoded the signal. People were so taken by the peaceful scenery that the did not take notice of me, the sound of probe emitted by the laptop, and the antenna — which is rather unusual:
24231 So 2019-04-14 17:04:10.001 lat: 48.76337 lon: 9.09396 alt: 487.00 vH: 0.1 D: 346.2° vV: 0.0
The fix was in a forest, and arriving there, I spotted the parachute in a tree right away. I tried to locate the probe with the directional antenna, which was giving inconclusive results as the signal was very strong — well in fact, I did not trust the readings — half a minute later, it would turn out that there were not so bad after all. I went towards the tree where the parachute had entangled itself with the intention to use the binoculars to follow the thread back to the probe. After a few steps I saw the probe lying on the ground — less than a meter from the gps reading and about 5 meters from the spot from where I had tried to locate it using the antenna. I recovered the probe. The parachute was stuck in a tree and not retrievable.
