The fever is still there. The probe landed in Leinfelden – too close to not go there — even though I became a little reluctant to go after probe models that I already have 🙂

Nearing Leinfeld I could occasionally hear the probe in the radio (about 3-5 km from its actual location). When I came closer, I was able to decode the telemetry and the embedded gps fix.

[16798] (P0530342) lat: 48.68422 lon: 9.13781 alt: 551.42 vH: 0.1 D: 126.4° vV: 0.0

The location pointed to a forest — not good. I parked the car and walked into the forest to locate the probe. The tree were not to high which raised my hopes. The signal became stronger, but it took me quite a while to locate the parachute (around 1.5 hours). Still no trace from the probe itself however. My timebox ran out and I had to go back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day, I returned with binoculars to look for the tether in the tree tops. The probe had of course stopped transmitting. After another hour of carefully searching with the binoculars, I had located the probe in about 13 meters height in a tree.  Sure enough, I had stood right under that tree the day before wondering where the probe could be. With no good idea on how to recover the probe, I went home.

 

 

 

 

Update on 2018-07-16:

I revisited the probe. The storm going over Stuttgart on the weekend had blown it of its tree branch which makes it recoverable. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring some tether to tear it down with a hook. I will be back…

 

 

Update on 2018-08-06:

Finally, the probe recovery. The probe had even further come down the tree. I dragged it down with a tree branch that I found broken off on the ground until the tether severed. The parachute is still up there and filled with leaves and  rain water  — I would think however chances are good for it to come down eventually, now that the probe is removed from the other side of the tether.