Radiosonde found dropped in Khangabok
Source: Hueiyen News Service
Kakching, April 21 2015 :
A lightweight weather GRAW DFM-06 radiosonde (GRAW Radiosonde, Germany) was found in a field of Khangabok Part-III in Thoubal district on Tuesday.
The unattended electronic device was found lying in Panchayat Ghar ground around 6 am.
A villager named Khundrakpam Lakpa (50) first came across it.
Lakpa, who was a morning jogger, did not pick up the radiosonde at first sight as he thought it to be a crude bomb.
Later, Lakpa picked up the unidentified object on which a website www.graw.de was found written on the base of the device.
The website says a GRAW DFM-06 radiosonde is a battery-powered telemetry instrument package carried into the atmosphere usually by a weather balloon that measures various atmospheric parameters and transmits them by radio to a ground receiver.
This device may operate at a radio frequency of 402 MHz or 1680 MHz.
A radiosonde whose position is tracked as it ascends to give wind speed and direction information is called rawinsonde.
A radiosonde that is dropped from an airplane and falls, rather being carried by a balloon is called a dropsonde.
Radiosondes are an essential source of meteorological data and hundreds are launched all over the world daily.