UFO - The Rest of the Story

One of the weather recording devices fell out of the walnut tree! In October. (I really should post more often.)
Here it is on the back step:



It's called a radiosonde. It had a cardboard covering that is mostly missing. That had the launch location and date information on it. Rats.

Here it is in closeup. It has a battery made of what look like metal plates wrapped in plastic. Never saw a naked battery before. The white thing with masking tape wrapped around it, on the left, is a plastic mailing bag. The unit has a long white wire from one end, and this little loopy thing on the side.

Here is the other side.
There's a sensor of some kind, and a metal plate thing. And look at the channels in the styrofoam.... It looks like something goes there. I hope it didn't fall apart as it fell - if so I won't find the bits until I mow over them in the Spring.

Here is the prepaid mailer. I packed it up and sent it out (after looking at it for a week or two).

The research I did online says that the Weather Service only gets about 20% of these radiosondes returned. They recondition them and send them out to be relaunched. This one had several layers of barcode stickers on it's bottom, so it's been around a time or two.

I guess I'm a geek - I think this sort of thing is cool.

I miss it now that it's gone. Oh well, there is one more of these still firmly stuck in the top of the tree, along with the pole-thing, and ropes.

Christmas is coming, and the tree is only 1/2 decorated!! Time for "holiday panic mode" I guess.