SOME OF THE ADVENTURES IN THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AMATEUR RADIO STATION, N9ZRT
Home QTH Green Bay, Wisconsin - Welcome!

"The winter time is the best, and it's hard to rival the fun one has when bouncing a signal off the atmosphere at the speed of light via a wire in the sky,

especially in the dark of night with an LED blinking at 500-plus feet over a frozen cornfield." – Kite-flying Ham

Check your US area's current Windspeed - Jetstream - Windchill - Temperature - Visibility - Satellite map - Weather Fronts.

A WARM WELCOME AND SOME KITE WISDOM

· No matter how you found us, we are glad you are here! Just pull up a chair around the table, and make yourself comfortable. Can I get you a cup of coffee? Cream or sugar?

· We want to thank all those hams on the net who have done kite-lifted antenna work before, from whom I am still learning the fun of this! You are my instructors. Thanks guys! Particularly we want to thank the patient folks at The Live-Wire Group putting up with my constant postings on this topic.

· We suggest you start at WA3ENK and AA3VS's site. This father and son team has done some awesome work for us all!

Sending up a kite-lifted antenna is old-news... but such a "breeze". Marconi did it for the first TransAtlantic radio signal over 100 years ago. Google “First TransAtlantic radio signal”.
Kites and wires were standard emergency gear for pilots in WWII. Google “Gibson Girl”. It's easy, fun and inexpensive.
The trick is having kites that lift like Popeye does when he eats spinach. Google “Load lifting kites” These kites are like hunting dogs waiting to fetch a signal. You don't need to run with these kites to get them up. Just hold them into the wind and hang on!
One drawback to kite-lifted wires is that they are weather-dependent... You must have, A.) Wind B.) No threat of lightning.

Once the kites, lines and spools are acquired, the cost is nothing but that to generate power.
Even in an urban setting, one could launch a medium length wire safely. Yet in open spaces, hundreds of feet of wire could be dangling from the sky in the time it would take you to iron a shirt. It can be launched at night or during the middle of the day.

WE LOVE THAT GEAR!

My favorite load-lifting kites are a

Cody Pro [Dimensions: About 5 feet x 2 feet x 3 feet, Wind 8-25 miles per hours]. Google images of a “Cody Pro kite”.
Cody Extreme [Dimensions: 7 feet x 4 feet, Wind Range: 6 - 25 mph]. Google images of a “Cody Extreme kite”.
Double French Military [Size: 6 feet. x 4 feet. Wind range: 6 to 20 mph]. Google images of a “Double French Military kite”.
Read my review of the Double French Military and the Cody Pro [Nearly equal in size and price]

We buy a lot of our hardware at farm supply stores. Google “Farm supply stores”.

We use numbered cow neck-tags attached to the kite string every 100 feet, these are used to visibly see how much line we have out. Google images of “livestock numbered neck tags”.
We also have a spool of 1320 ft poly electric fence rope with wire woven into it as an antenna. Google images of “Poly electric fence rope”.
We most often use 17g bare solid aluminum electric fence wire in 1/4 mile lengths. Google images of “Electric fence wire”.
We use a dairy farm milk-scale to measure pounds of lift. Google images of “Hanging scale”.
For cable wraps and “third hands”, we use Velcro “Cow ankle straps”, or more widely known as “Livestock ID bands”. See The Coburn Company’s “Velcro Flagbands”.

Homebrew helpfuls…

Our static bleeder gadget removes dangerous static off the wire before it gets to the radio.
We use a homemade sextant to measure degree of flight to find altitude.

GETTING READY TO FLY

For sending up really long wires we scout out a pre-determined flying location that is at least 5 miles from an airport, is clear of trees, utility lines/poles and if possible, fences. This location would be in the country far from busy roads and pedestrians. We prefer to ask farmers for permission. When we do, giving a full description of who we are and what we intend to do, they cock their head sideways like the RCA Dog, thinking we are loony, and always give permission. In the middle of winter, when the tracks of snowmobiles have visited the fields, permission hardly seems necessary. Such locations are hard to find and once located, we save them in our GPS.
It is important to know the Federal Regulations concerning moored balloons and kites. See N9ZRT's FAA and FCC Rules Page.
We check the WX for windspeed, wind direction and lightning danger. If everything checks out ok, we proceed.
Then we drive to our pre-determined location.
Once at our pre-determined location, we assemble the kite[s] in shadow of the wind, in the downwind side of the car, crouching next to the car. You would be amazed at how frustrating it is to assemble such a cloth structure in any breeze!
We do not use string, but wire, mainly 15g bare aluminum electric fence wire spooled on a pneumatic hose reel.
If we are launching when we know we will still be on the air after sunset, we send up a strobe light or LED on each kite.
The antenna often hangs like a sloper, or sometimes vertical, making it very directional. When sloping, sending the signal in the same direction the wind is blowing. That is what we have experienced so far.
We may send up two kites in a train on one line, both to gain altitude and lift.
We may anchor the kite upwind from the operating station in order to let the wire hang vertical.
Once we lifted and flew a full wave 160m loop lifted with a single kite in the winter time.
After the kite[s] and wire are up, and BEFORE we connect to the radio, we attach one or two static bleeder gadgets about 6 feet up the wire. We also may ground the antenna coupler to Mother Earth. The static that builds on the wire must be bled off prior to the radio, or we are told the radio may be damaged.
And now it is time to play radio. For resonant antenna models, we suggest you start at AA3VS.
We find a clear spot on the band, tune the radio with an SGC Smartuner and call CQ. And that is it!
Added to that, we can use this equation to measure the altitude of our kite.
Packing up to go home can present a problem for the next flight! Consider the kite like a parachute. Pack it fairly neat, then when you get home, take it back out of the bag and re-pack in the comfortable windless residence. Do a re-pack of it, just like they do with a parachute. Then, when you get to the field for the next launch, that bridle and the kite are not tangled, but ready for an easy assembly and launch.

WE FLY KITES WITH A HISTORY BEHIND THEM – MORE OF THE SAME

Our favorite for its historical lore is the Cody, named after Samuel Cody. You could write a book on this guy! How can his life be summarized? It's a smaller version of his man-lifting kite. There are modern Cody man-lifters in service today. Our other favorite is the Double French Military kite, also known as,” The French Military box kite". This kite is not dissimilar to the Conyne kite which had been patented by an American, Silas J. Conyne, in 1902. The Double French Military is a great load lifter!

A "FLY BY NIGHT" OPERATION - A night-flight view of the spools At night we fly with a strobe light on each kite. Once, when flying at 500 ft in the dark, with the backdrop of twinkling stars and a full moon, if it were not for the strobe, it would have been nearly impossible to see the kite! There it was, twinkling like one of the real ones high above the operation location. As I was working a station from the kite, the other station reported my signal strength had dropped way down. I looked up, and the twinkle of my kite's strobe was no where to be seen! I looked left in the night-sky, then right, high and low, and nope, no strobe-blinking kite. I then looked back at the winders, and sure enough, the line was down and laying stretched out across the muddy January cornfield, vanishing into the darkness. It was time to get the kite. I walked out across what, in 6 months would be "amber waves of grain", letting the kite line slip through my glove like a guide, directing me to the crash site. With my weak flashlight doing it's best, it shone on the kite and strobe. There they were, "stuck in the mud" with the strobe still on-duty. Come to find out, a tear in the kite's material had let go one of the spars [structural supports] and the kite and wire came tumbling down. It was time to wind things up and go home. By email later, at least one station said he could still hear me when I signed off saying, "My wire is laying across the cornfield, N9ZRT clear". Amazing! Snow and winter WX has not stopped us yet. Actually, the adventure helps fight the winter blues! Cabin fever is out the window!

WE ARE NEVER DONE LEARNING, THAT'S FOR SURE - Did you know that the US Weather Bureau used to have over 25 "Kite stations" around the country, from which they sent up kites for weather observation? They used piano wire as line to reach 23,000 feet! Here are the remains of such a kite station in Germany, winch house and all. One US Weather Bureau kite-man was struck and killed by lightning when the force of Mother Nature came down that wire-line that held the kite in the air. It's good to know about lightning and never to fly when there is a threat of it within 50 miles.

DID SOMEONE MENTION LOW FLYING AIRCRAFT? - "A little girl was holding 170 lb line to her dad's 11 ft Cloud Pleasers Marshall Delta-Conyne when a flying ambulance came in too low on a seldom-used approach to nearby Palo Alto airport and snagged the line in the prop. Girl was lifted about ten feet and let go when she saw a grove of trees approaching. No damage or injuries, but lots a adrenalin pumped." Read about this and more at a kite safety page created by NASA. Did you ever hear of guys who use kites to lift cameras? The American Kitefliers Association has excellent resources from safety to design.

OTHER APPLICATIONS

I hope to work you! - N9ZRT - Dave Hatch - n9zrt@arrl.net

Live-Wire Group - Kite-Antenna FAQ - SGC Smartuners - N9ZRT - FAA and FCC Rules Page

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these kites from the swift completion of their appointed wire-lifting.
Only the threat of lightning will ground them! Well, on second thought, maybe rain too! – Kite-flying Ham