160M Balloon

[flintstone mop]

Is this a crazy thought or what?
What kind of a hassle would it be to launch a balloon 240 feet OR (one wavelength) in the air with a wire attached for 160M? Is it true that a wire or tower a full wave length long would not need a ground radial system?
Fred

[Pete, WA2CWA]

A Google search turned up 1.14M hits for a balloon antenna.

A big balloon, helium, wire, and probably lots of prayers. Short duration type activity; wind, birds, tall people, balloon venting, etc. probably need to be taken into consideration.

[kf6pqt]

Not to mention airplanes, electrical wires, static discharge.    Imagine if your wire broke at the bottom and the baloon got away, what kind of havoc it would wreak upon the nearest municipal power grid it encountered!

[K1JJ]

Fred,

Even though the 1/2 wave vertical is of higher input feed impedance thus can tolerate a higher ground resistance number,  it still needs a radial system to return the ground current to the base.

In addition, a 1/2 wave vertical has a lower take-off angle than a 1/4 wave vertical. The 1/4 wave is low as it is. The problem here is you need a bigger cleared perimeter area than normal around the vertical to permit this low angle energy to radiate. With take off angles down around 10 degrees on 160M, you better have no houses, hills, power lines, etc for at least a 1/4 mile around, minimum, or the advantage of the lower angles is simply wasted in attenuation.

I'm afraid there's no free lunches, even wid a balloon...  

73,
T

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

If I were to do it, I'd try a 0.75 wavelength wire. This gives a nice medium angle take off pattern - better for stateside AM use.

[KA8WTK]

The radio club I am in tried a balloon one field day for a 160 antenna. The problem was that the wind "pushes" the balloon. The more the "push", the lower the balloon would be and the more toward horizontal the antenna would be. Didn't work out well with the weather they had that year. However, very calm conditions would be much better.

[KB2WIG]

I " blimp" shaped baloon will keep its nose into the wind and will stay close to its design altitude. You also might rig up a deadman type valve on the baloon to dump its gas if it gets away from the antenna part. A lanyard is connected to the antenna and a "plug" so if there is a seperation , the lanyard  pulls the plug on the balloon.  You want to design the antenna to be weak at the baloon so it will break here not anywhere else...  Or, some RC modelist creates a Red Barron Death Plane to chase said runaway baloon and do a Kamakaze.......  klc

[kf6pqt]

Or, some RC modelist creates a Red Barron Death Plane to chase said runaway baloon and do a Kamakaze.......

That would be SO freakin' awesome! With one of those little ATV transmitters, so it would be like the "smartbomb" targeting video... Someone's gotta do this! 

[w3jn]

^^ If you try this, make sure you fill the balloon with hydrogen instead of helium.

[W1UJR]

^^ If you try this, make sure you fill the balloon with hydrogen instead of helium.

Yes, the results are spectacular!

[WA1GFZ]

Bruce,
My Dad was a kid when he saw that ship go over Hartford on its way to doom in N.J.

[W1ATR]

^^ If you try this, make sure you fill the balloon with hydrogen instead of helium.

Put a little oxygen in the mix with that hydrogen so that sucker vaporizes up in the air with one helluva report.

Otherwise, with my luck, it would come down slowly in a huge blaze and land on the roof of some yuppie McMansion and torch the joint.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

...oh the humanity....

[w3jn]

When I lived in the Philippines they used hydrogen for party balloons rather than helium.  A colleague was burned pretty good when he was in some bar smoking next to a bunch of balloons and they exploded.

[W1UJR]

When I lived in the Philippines they used hydrogen for party balloons rather than helium.  A colleague was burned pretty good when he was in some bar smoking next to a bunch of balloons and they exploded.

The Phillippines, say, isn't that the home of "Love You Long Time"!

[WA1GFZ]

A Marine I know called it the home of LBFM....and gleep if I spelled it correctly

[wb1aij]

If the wind is still the balloon will work just fine. If it gets windy use a kite. I made a box kite about the size of a large refrigerator out of wooden dowels and rip stop tent nylon. It was a thing of beauty. It would haul up a very long antenna on a day with a good wind. I used a long chain link fence at an old Nike Site as a counterpoise & it worked well with a homebrew antenna tuner. I did see a 6 foot helium balloon with a down-pointing video camera at a hamfest a couple of years ago in Vernon, Ct. You could see what you look like from above on the TV monitor.
I don't know if the 200' antenna regulation for aviation hazard lights applies to this. Check out the link.

http://www.spyflight.co.uk/Aerostat.HTM

[NE4AM]

You would definitely not want the balloon/kite to be tethered by the antenna wire.  Rather, you would want to tether the balloon/kite by some nylon cord, with a breaking strength higher than that of the antenna wire.  You then run the antenna wire vertically down from the balloon/kite to your rig.  You can move the anchor point for the nylon cord as the wind direction shifts to maintain the vertical orientation of the antenna wire.  Or you could 'guy' your balloon/kite with two or more cords, and the position of the kite will end up pretty stable.  The advantages of this are:
1.  If your antenna wire breaks, the balloon/kite is not lost.  No wire coming down miles away across power lines!
2.  Because the stress of holding down the balloon/kite is now held by the cord, the antenna wire can be a thinner gauge, saving the weight of the additional cord.  Consequently, a smaller balloon/kite would be needed.

Dave

[w1guh]

If the wind is still the balloon will work just fine. If it gets windy use a kite. I made a box kite about the size of a large refrigerator out of wooden dowels and rip stop tent nylon. It was a thing of beauty. It would haul up a very long antenna on a day with a good wind. I used a long chain link fence at an old Nike Site as a counterpoise & it worked well with a homebrew antenna tuner. I did see a 6 foot helium balloon with a down-pointing video camera at a hamfest a couple of years ago in Vernon, Ct. You could see what you look like from above on the TV monitor.
I don't know if the 200' antenna regulation for aviation hazard lights applies to this. Check out the link.

http://www.spyflight.co.uk/Aerostat.HTM

You got a box kite to fly?  Congratulations...my Hi-Fliers always self destructed before I could get them stabilized.  But...I made miniture box kites out of soda straws & tissue paper and the flew good.

[WB2EMS]

The Cornell Amateur Radio Club did this years ago for a couple of 160 meter contests. As I recall they used a 5/8 long vertical radiator on the balloon and did it down near the salt mines on cayuga lake so there wasn't much around for the wire to fall on. They talked about the balloon getting blown a bit, but mostly they were on at night when the winds were calmer. No one here has done it for years that I know of.

There was also a QST article about 5-10 years ago about hoisting antennas using a special kind of kite called a 'Scott sled'. The design in the article was based on using tyvek of the type used for wrapping houses, and some vertical pvc or dowel sections. Looked pretty simple to build. That kite was developed for I think the weather service when they used to fly their instruments on kites instead of releasing free balloon radiosondes. They are supposed to fly in quite mild winds, and at very high angles.

here's a couple of websites I found about sled kites.

http://www.kites.org/zoo/single/sled/sled.html

http://members.cox.net/gengvall/k_sled.html   in this one you can see the high angle to the cord

Some pages on kite lifted antennas

http://www.njqrp.org/mbrproj/kite/kites.html

http://www.wireservices.com/n9zrt/live-wire/events/marconi/kitefaq.html

http://www.chem.hawaii.edu/uham/kite.html

[W3SLK]

Frank said:

A Marine I know called it the home of LBFM....and gleep if I spelled it correctly

A fellow shipmate married one and refer to her as an LBFM. My apologies to the MOPman, just stating facts.

[WA1GFZ]

I find them very nice people myself.

[W3SLK]

Frank said

I find them very nice people myself.

...And damn fine cooks! Can you say lumpia?

[w3jn]

I'm married to one as well.

[Bacon, WA3WDR]

A big enough balloon could lift the center of an inverted-V.  I think that would be better than a vertical out to 300 miles.  The antenna would hold the balloon in one dimension, and some side ropes could hold the balloon in the other dimension.  Or maybe an inverted-V turnstile, and the whole thing would be antenna.  Could be cool.

Good idea about using ropes, and thinner antenna wire for lower weight.  #16 wire should be fine, maybe even #18.