Man, tracking those big shiny balloons always felt like magic to me. But you know what? Magic stops being fun when you lose an expensive setup mid-flight. Happened three times last season! So this year, I grabbed every aerostar balloon tracker folks recommended and tested them myself. No theory, just hands-on, bang-your-head-against-the-wall kinda testing.
Getting My Hands Dirty
First up was the SkyHawk 3000. Everyone online swore by its range. Setup? Piece of cake. Screwed the antenna on, slapped that sucker onto my test rig, and hauled it up 10k feet. Worked like a dream… for half an hour. Then? Dead silence. Turns out the battery indicator lied big time. Took four hours to find the balloon soaking wet in a cornfield. Score: Zero for reliability.
The Middle Game Struggle
Learned my lesson. Bought the CloudTamer Pro with their “super solar charger.” Set up at dawn, perfect tracking all morning. Clouds rolled in though? Solar panel turned into a fancy paperweight. By noon, the signal got weaker than my grandma’s tea. Total distance tracked: 48 miles. Not terrible, but rain killed it for a week straight afterwards. Kept resetting itself like a moody teenager. Real pain.
- Good things first: Strong signal when sunny, decent mapping app
- Bad stuff: Useless in clouds, reset bug drives you nuts
- Price? Felt too high for what it does.
The Underdog Surprise
Almost gave up till my buddy tossed me his backup tracker, the OldTrust Brick. Looked like something from the 90s – clunky, heavy, screen green as old pond water. But man…this thing WORKED. Threw it off my barn roof (accidentally!), bounced twice, still tracking. Charged it once, ran nonstop five days through rain and shine. App’s uglier than my first car, but pinpointed location within yards every time.
Kept testing all three side-by-side for two weeks:
- SkyHawk: Great until sudden death
- CloudTamer: High maintenance diva
- OldTrust Brick: Dropped it? Ran over it? Tracking. Like. A. Tank.
Picking The Winner
So which one wins? Not the shiniest. Not the one with fancy claims. The damn OldTrust Brick smashed it. Yeah, it’s heavy. Yeah, it looks ugly. But it just. Doesn’t. Quit. Perfect? Nah. But if you actually need to find your balloon, this clunker beats the others silly. Save your cash, skip the hype, get the brick. Threw the other two in my junk drawer – probably stay there forever.