It’s a long time since I went kite flying with a serious kite guy. (He had setups that could drag a Series II Landrover over rough ground.)
What he did for lifting heavy (for various definitions of heavy) items was to have 2 or more kites in series that flew attached to one tethered line. Then he used a separate kite that pulled the object to be lifted up the line tethering the other kites.
This picture may help. There are 2 Cody Manlifter kites attached to the red line which is tethered to the ground. The woman sits in a cradle attached to the3rd Cody Manlifter. The 3rd kite is hanging off the red line. The blue line attached to the 3rd kite is let out and the 3rd kite will fly up the red line. Most the weight is supported on the red line with the blue line controlling how high up the payload will rise.
If you go to my page on F1LPT - Callsign Lookup by QRZ Ham Radio
You will get some information about the antennas I use in at home or portable with some kite
and I activate in 8 days TM22CAB at the 35th International Kite Festival of Berck sur mer in the north of France.
On the page TM22CAB - Callsign Lookup by QRZ Ham Radio
you will see 4 of my kites that I will use.
TM22CAC at Cayeux sur mer in June and TM22CAD at Dieppe in september always in north of France
I use also K.A.P …Kite Aerial Photography since 1998
I just noticed your post in this thread, and the various replies. I used a similar set-up to the one you’re proposing. Mine was a 4:1 with one side going to the antenna and the other to a ground spike. The spike I used as a stainless steel tent peg about 300mm long, used only to conduct any static charge on the wire down to earth. The RF “ground” was a counterpoise wire laid over the grass. I had no trouble with static charge building up on the wire using this arrangement.
Incidentally, it was very helpful to have an assistant who could be the kite pilot. Often, on a summit, the air is somewhat turbulent and I found the kite would occasionally dive towards the ground. The “pilot” managed to stop it from crashing by carefully timed tugging on the flying line.
Hi Bernard, that’s very good to know. I was waiting to hear from someone who had actually used this arrangement in practise before connecting my radio to the antenna. I’ll report back after having tried it.
done a fair bit of practical research into this over the last 5 years - here’s what we ( g6urm & 2e0dtc ) have learned:
kites: you will need a selection if you are going to do this seriously - for differing conditions
small sled - WITH A DROGUE tail - much more stable - strong winds
2: bloody big sled - ditto - for light winds / heavy loads
3: Codey box kite - good lifter ,stable - but fiddly to put together in the field
4 DELTA : probably the best - most stable we have … mind it is some 3 meters across - NOT a single handed job !!
in fact , its not easy to do kites single handed and operate as you have to watch out for "the public " - most are very nice - but you do get a lot of KARENS - WHO WILL MOAN ABOUT ANYTHING - had on report us for flying during covid - (we were well within the rules btw) - she called the police!! - , who duly turned up - looked at us - and drove away - then there are the " male " version - who demand " by who’s authority you are indulging in such dangerous and suspicious activities?? - true we had it happen on Dartmoor - having said that, PLEASE be aware that in rural areas there may be horse riders - horses don’t like kites !! - so if you see one or more coming - drop the kite and let them pass by - they are usually VERY nice types and say thank you, had some good conversations with the horsy fraternity - they tend to be most interested in what you are up to
so just be aware of those around you - you may be in the remotest spot like ever - but …
now to the vexed question of "BLEED RESISTORS " - YES do not fly without one!! nice low loss path via a big 10 megaohm CARBON RESISTOR - vis at least 1/2 the wattage of what you are using - which is easy at QRP levels - not so easy at 50 w!! - and no, you don’t need a copper earth stake - a steel tent peg will suffice, we have not had any problems or blown front ends - there are designs for spark gap bleeds around as well - but if the weather is capable of creating sparks - you should not be out in it flying kites!! - i have had one workmate KILLED by lightning in my time - so am VERY wary of conditions - IF IN DOUBT - DON’T!!! - other than that USE COMMON SENSE !!
what else ?? - you will be lucky to get the right conditions to get a vertical vertical - so don’t stress it - we worked into south Africa on 5 w and the wire was touching the ground at one end - you will find with a bit of practice ( and trust me it took several attempts and a lot of cursing ) to get our setups sorted ( plus a severely bruised thumb when the wind took the kite and i did not have the winder correctly held ) , talking of which - get the best you can afford WITH a break - again tried the cheap and cheerful - but a proper heavy duty one is worth every penny !!
BUT if you really must have a vertical wire … try balloons !! - big 3 foot across balloons - and a calm day … but THAT as they say is another saga !! lol
cheers Geoff - 1 small error i spotted - that should be a 1 megaohm carbon resistor - there are various other opinions about what size it should be - but that’s what i use - and soo far its worked - but basically so long as you have something to bleed off any static build up on the wire - its ok
whilst i have time, i will just mention the balloon lifted variant - not really something you can do from a mountain top but worth a go if you are a chaser??
you can get 3 foot heavy duty latex balloons from wammazon and other online retailers quite cheap - 5 for maybe 12 quid or so - BUT the kicker is the gas to fill them, basically you have 2 choices, 1: commercial gas outlets , VERY expensive or 2: so called "party balloon " gas which is not so pure helium - but cheaper ( ish ) and available online - in disposable cylinders
however - unless you are mega rich - its still pricy , as to get a couple of 3 footers filled may take 2 cylinders of gas !!
and PLEASE do not even THINK of using hydrogen - it’s dangerous stuff … VERY dangerous stuff !! - big ka boom boom’s dangerous stuff - take it from a former fire fighter - you don’t want to mess with this!!
then of course you have the problem of a "no wind " day - even the stillest of days on the ground have breezes at any hight ( we are restricted to 60 meters AGL in the Uk by the CAA - unless you have written clearance - THIS ALSO APPLIES TO KITES BTW ) - we had to wait 6 months for the right conditions , and it was an early start
did it work ?? - well yes but not as well as the cost and problems were worth - so IMO stick to kites!! - but in the spirit of experimentation (which is what AR should be about) - we had to try it at least once .
A couple of small comments to add.
On any breezy day the friction of the air on the wire can generate a lot of voltage. Enough to stop your pacemaker and give you frizzy hair. Your bleed resistor is mandatory and should not be more than 1 Mohm. Power rating of 1 watt should suffice. It should not matter how much power you are running. If you use a high ratio transformer the bleed resistor will be shunted by the DC resistance of the winding. Check your circuit. The antenna impedance should be less than 5 kohm
If you use an atu you will have to set the wire length a bit away from half wave resonance or it won’t match. In so doing you drop the RF volts considerably and the 1 Mohm resistor will be fine.
Now if you could just regulate the wind speed.
It is possible to build a control circuit to operate aerofoils on the trailing edge of the lifting surfaces to hold the kite at altitude but it would be easier to buy a drone and set it in hover mode. You will need a stack of batteries for an afternoon on the hill
cheers Ron - there is a lot of conflicting info on "how " to do kite lifted antennas on the net and i would think that it depends on local weather conditions as to how much static build up you get - where we are in the UK , it seems to not be too much of a problem , however i would echo your sentiment about the bleed resistor being "mandatory " - way better than a new PA section or even radio in extremis - imagine losing a 705 or some such because you could not be bothered with a resistor !! - having said this - getting hold of big value carbon resistors is not easy - but they can be had or made up from smaller value ones in parallel and or series of course - which is what we do
as to drones - apart from the problems mentioned - we have another locally in that the flying of drones in our local national park / favourite flying spot is banned by local by-law - so as not to frighten the sheep or Karen’s or some such .lol , and the local park gestapo ( read park rangers ) are pretty hot on this , but of course can’t do anything about kites as we have had to explain to them on one occasion ( i used to live on Dartmoor and have had many a run in with them - especially in my firefighting days ) - so if one IS thinking of drones - its worth checking local regulations
so far as un-un’s go - i use a 9 to 1 , and would be interested in your thoughts on this as again seen all sorts of values mentioned on line - and yes atu very essential - i just use a mfj "pocket " tuner which is ok for the QRP levels we use - and works very well - we did try an auto tuner - but it did not like it and just adds more things to go wrong - so stick to the "old school " methods
Hi Brett,
My experience with elevated sky hook antennas is limited to hydrogen filled balloons.
There are air navigation rules about such things but these days it is drones that are more of a concern.
BTW I made my own hydrogen with what came to hand on the farm. It was the least dangerous of the bombs and rockets I built. I had some basic knowledge gleaned from an Admiralty Handbook on making explosives that some gent had donated to our technical school library.
If you are in the open air and the balloon leaks it won’t be a danger. Regardless of the gaseous fuel, be it petrol fumes or hydrogen unless you get close to the critical fuel oxygen mix there won’t be a big boom. And of course you need an igniter.
That’s not to say you can be cavalier. And the Karen’s will go into low Earth orbit if they get a glimmer of potentially explosives stuff.
Does it have to be a carbon resistor? I see that the Sotabeams bleed resistors are metal film. Farnell has far more metal film resistors with higher voltage ratings than the carbon ones.
People are probably specifying carbon so you get a relatively non-inductive resistor. Maybe they should say “don’t use a wirewound resistor”. TBH it’s so long since I did regular analog stuff I can’t remember what the inductance of metal film looks like compared with carbon composition.
OK guys. You are bleeding off static charge. Any resistor type will do it. At RF they all will look like a small capacitor in parallel with the resistance.
Worst case is for a half wave or multiples of a half wave wire. The end impedance is likely under 10 k ohms. You won’t notice a shunt resistance of more than 250 k ohms.
1 megohm wire wound resistors are not common and are likely to have a higher shunt capacitance.
The first order equivalent circuit is a capacitor in parallel with a resistor and inductor in series.
The resistance is likely much greater than the reactance of the inductor and so the shunt C is the dominant term on HF.
In this case the extra C lowers the antena resonant frequency by a smidge.
I would use what was in the bin. Or whatever metallic film resistors with a around 1 Watt rating were available from my usual supplier.
Any value from 470 k to 1.5 M should work equally as well. As Andrew mentions SOTABeams carry suitable ones
The aerodynamic properties of the kite and skill of its pilot are more important than the exact value of bleed resistor.
