February 4, 2026
Sky-high snark incoming
High-Altitude Adventure with a DIY Pico Balloon
DIY party balloons go global—cheers, eco guilt, and Pentagon flashbacks
TLDR: DIY pico balloons use cheap parts and a ham-radio network to drift for months and share their position. The community’s split: excitement, eco worries, jet-engine jitters, Starlink dreams, and memes about hobby balloons meeting the Pentagon—proof this backyard science is fun, controversial, and surprisingly global.
Amateur balloonists are buzzing over pico balloons—cheap party balloons with tiny solar-powered trackers that can float for months and broadcast their location via the ham-radio network WSPR (Weak Signal Propagation Reporter). The build uses a $4 Raspberry Pi Pico and a shoestring budget, but the comments are the real lift. One camp is swooning over globe-trotting balloons; another is clutching pearls about sky litter and planes. pingou fired the opening volley, worrying about pollution and even jet-engine mishaps.
Gearheads piled in. mkarliner pointed to QRPLabs as the “goto” supplier, sparking a mini brand war. ajxs dropped the ultimate meme: remember when the U.S. shot down a hobby balloon? Suddenly your $10 party balloon has Pentagon vibes. Dreamers like bambax want Starlink photos from the stratosphere—others reminded them that power and bandwidth up there are brutally limited. Meanwhile, SuperMouse is cooking up a 2.4 GHz LoRa alternative because why not start a standards fight at 60,000 feet?
One builder’s first balloon went silent halfway across the Atlantic, fueling “where did it go?” speculation. The vibe: awe at globe-circling balloons, roasting over pollution and safety, and jokes about turning birthday décor into international incidents. Ham radios are the original “Find My Balloon,” and the drama is absolutely airborne.
Key Points
- •Superpressure “pico” balloons can sustain high-altitude flight for months and long distances with very light payloads (12–30 g).
- •Global tracking is achieved via WSPR, a low-bandwidth amateur radio protocol developed by Joseph H. Taylor Jr., without using satellites.
- •A $4 Raspberry Pi Pico with a GPS/transmitter daughterboard (Jetpack WSPR Tracker) forms the payload, powered by two lightweight solar modules.
- •A general-class ham-radio license is required to transmit telemetry on the relevant bands; batteries are impractical due to stratospheric cold.
- •Costs are low: custom boards manufactured in China for $39 (plus shipping/tariffs), $4 Pico, ~$10 balloons and helium, and $7 solar modules; first flight ended mid-Atlantic.