We did a similar thing, only we intentionally made it more difficult on ourselves by launching at sunset because we were hoping to grab the view of city lights at night with the GoPros. Also, we did not have any licensed radio operators in our group, so no fun equipment like that. We instead depended on a consumer GPS tracker that updated once ever 5 minutes. We also had an Arduino with various sensors attached, but that was for me as the main purpose was the video footage.

Some of the memorable experiences from it:

1) Purchasing equipment to do a Hydrogen launch because this was during a Helium shortage and the cost difference was significant. Arrived at store to pick up our Hydrogen tank where the guy working took a look at us knuckleheads and had serious reservations about selling us inexperienced dorks Hydrogen. Took pity on us and swapped out all of our fittings (hydrogen fittings are specific to prevent accidental use of hydrogen) and sold us the tank of Helium for a much cheaper price than what we were originally told.

2) Printing up stickers to attach to the payload box with "If Found" contact instructions only to realize one second after letting go of the payload that you forgot to attach said stickers.

3) The terror of realizing that when the balloon took off that it immediately headed west when the flight predictions you had been running for the previous days before all showed the balloon landed east.

4) Having to contact ATC to report the launch of the balloon, only to be told they needed further updates at every 10,000' feet.

5) The terror setting in deeper when the consumer GPS unit stopped responding after 30,000' altitude and then having ATC scold how unprofessional we were for using cheap devices. At least they told us they were still tracking it.

6) The shenanigans a group of knuckleheads got up to waiting the ~3 hours for the balloon to land.

7) The relief when the consumer GPS unit started pinging updates again on the way down and the laugh (with us not at us) from ATC that we could start reporting back again.

8) Using mobile Google Maps to attempt to find the GPS location. Wandering around fields in the middle of the night to find a strange circular pattern of out of place plants to realize it was from a deer feeder's throw. Then searching for the nearby camera trap to wave to leave some hunter with serious WTF.

9) Nearly giving up on the search until deciding to use the hotspot to look up the GPS coordinates not on a mobile device to see that the balloon was less than 300' from where we parked making the hours spent wandering really dumb.

A joke domain purchase turned in geopolitical warfare