Found in the AZ desert

[ChrisSmolinski]

Doesn't look quite like a weather balloon / radiosonde to me. Maybe one of the ham radio balloons? Or some other research project? Ideas?

We found this while hiking in a remote part of the desert west of Phoenix. I think it could be air pressure and other sensors and transmitter from a weather balloon. But my searches don't pull up similar stuff.
The whole thing:





Full article: https://www.bikeforums.net/foo/1190006-found-az-desert.html?fbclid=IwAR1aTdINFbdI1ATCHHN1-3V1sccILQuUqueThYDwqnRmM2hgg9v2S1SVegQ#post21243649

[JCMaxwell]

FWIW looks like Ghidora makes gas sensors.

[Fansome]

Perhaps part of the program to detect chemical and biological attacks.

[Josh]

Doesn't look like all of it was present.

[Pigmeat]

Now Al, you know that's a high altitude penguin detector.

[Fansome]

You know better than that, Pigmeat. Penguins can't fly, so there's no such thing as a "high altitude penguin".

Now Al, you know that's a high altitude penguin detector.

[redhat]

It's probably been there a while, judging from the corrosion and date codes on the parts.  My guess is some ham radio balloon thing.

+-RH

[Pigmeat]

You know better than that, Pigmeat. Penguins can't fly, so there's no such thing as a "high altitude penguin".

Now Al, you know that's a high altitude penguin detector.

Says the man who was raving about flying penguins buzzing his trailer while on the roof looking for Santa this time last year.

[Josh]

It's probably been there a while, judging from the corrosion and date codes on the parts.  My guess is some ham radio balloon thing.

+-RH

I was thinking mil/gov as it seems similar to the mil electronics I've been into as far as construction and materials, teflon silver coax, fibreglass pcb, etc, compare it to the throw away radiosondes of today.

All I know for sure is if that thing was found by me it'd be in the back of my truck and out of the ao pronto. Kinda like that fool who found the end of a Russian sub trailing wire antenna on the beach and told everyone.

[Strange Beacons]

Looking at the dents and dings in the equipment seems to indicate that it may have possibly fallen from a great height. So, weather balloon? Or some sort of other radio experiment aloft?

[Pigmeat]

That's what I was thinking, SB, but it's been nearly 50 years I've seen one of the things? The one I saw still had an attached but partially inflated balloon and a pack of kids hanging on to it as it crossed a pasture pulling it down. It had a brass plate with the return address of the NOAA on it.

[ChrisSmolinski]

FWIW, the radiosondes I have seen are all very light weight, with styrofoam and cardboard housings, certainly not a metal chassis, to keep the weight down.  This seems too beefy to be a radiosonde?

[Traveling Wave]

This doesn't solve the mystery but the yellowish nameplate is marked ISOTEMP Research Inc., and OCX0131-2 is also marked on the nameplate. An OCXO is an oven-controlled crystal oscillator. This type of oscillator achieves the highest frequency stability possible with a crystal.  Attached is an ISOTEMP data sheet for the OCXO 131 Series device ...http://www.isotemp.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/OCXO-131.pdf

[Josh]

Some high detail pics of the boards might help suss out what each board does. Also the date codes on any chips will tell us when they were made. Not very clandestine if the lettering/nomenclature is visible, so prolly not a nsa/cia thingy.