[CQ-Contest] Drones

[Don Butler]

Battery life for most drone flights will typically limit your flight time to
20-25 minutes or less  ...... so a drone is likely to be helpful for lifting
a weighted line into the air and stratically dropping it over a support
(tree branch, etc) ... which will then allow that line to be used to pull
the antenna/rope over the same branch ... but it is not practical for
continuous support like a balloon will give you...  and:  even though a
drone can easily lift a monofilimant line with a small weight and then use a
remote release to drop it  .... it's very doubtful that it will be able to
support the weight of a long wire antenna

Don, N5LZ

-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces+n5lz=comcast.net at contesting.com]
On Behalf Of h .
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2023 6:06 PM
To: cq-contest at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Drones

I see there's expertise here using drones so I'll ask a related question.

For the last few years I've been using balloons to lift vertical antennas on
160 and 80. (You can see a picture on my qrz page.) It works pretty well as
long as the wind is below ~12 mph. Above that the antenna rotates far enough
from vertical that the different coupling to ground makes it unusable.

I've been thinking that a tethered drone might do better in the wind. I've
tried small, cheap (< $100) drones and they're almost as bad as balloons.
The more expensive drones claim better wind resistance. It doesn't have to
hold position too precisely; 10 to 20 degrees from vertical should be OK.

Any thoughts?

. howie, wb2cpu

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