Did an extremely successful radio test on the 4th of May from Port Douglas to Buchans Point. The distance between these two locations is 35km. With the help of my wonderful neighbour we were able to :-

• Confirm that the radio link at 1Watt over 35 km works extremely well, even with HAB in the least optimal orientation
• Was able to transmit an image perfectly over the 35km link without any problems at the x-modem layer.
• Was able to get the distance between the two locations (using my mobile GPS co-ordinates and the GPS co-ordinates of the HAB)
• The cut-down mechanism was initiated and burnt through the rubberband a little
• Confirmed that the Groundstation new battery configuration is working well.

The great thing about this test is that the Fresnel zone was 65% which means in the real launch, we would expect even better radio transmission results. There is no shadow of doubt that the link distance (as per rfd900 specs) of 40km is reliable and that the max link distance of 50km is probably easily achievable.

I see no reason to continue on with other aspects of the project.