TopBand: Re: Edmund balloons; questions

[Jeffrey Maass]

On Fri, 27 Dec 1996, William Harris wrote:

> Anyone out there have information on the lifting power of Hydrogen. vs
> Helium,?  Anyone out there using it?  I see no problem with the antenna
> coming down, other than the labor of putting it back up again. Out here,
> there is nothing but jack rabbits, coyotes and rattle snakes.
> 

I don't have the lifting data at hand, but Hydrogen will provide more lift.
I'll leave the quantification to the physics-enabled.

Perhaps more interesting, the Helium tends to leak out of the balloon more
quickly than does the Hydrogen. When we were using Kitoon-supported
antennas for 160, we used both gases at various times (whatever the OSU
Physics Department would provide: one year we used both!).

The Helium-filled Kitoon require more frequent maintenance.

DVC,

Jeff Maass       (jmaass@freenet.columbus.oh.us)      Amateur Radio K8ND
      USPSA/IPSC # L-1192   NROI/CRO          NW of Columbus Ohio
      25000 Members in 2000!



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