Antenna on a drone??

[EdNerd]

It's the Writer again, with a another "can I do this?" question. :8>)

Understanding that antenna height is the key to communications over distance, and knowing that in some instances you can throw a wire over a tree branch for an antenna -- could I connect a wire to a drone and fly it up a ways for antenna height? What about mounting an actual antenna to the drone and flying it up? What would be the practical limitations of something like this?

Ed

 

[baybum]

Transmit at 100 watts and blow the drone up?
that was a joke everybody

 

[prcguy]

I've been meaning to do this with an end fed half wave HF wire antenna. For 40m the antenna is about 63ft long using 22ga wire with a very lightweight 100w rated transformer and I was going to add about 10ft of guy string to my DJI Phantom and hoist it up until the transformer feed point was maybe 20ft off the ground. I expect to have some RFI from the motors, otherwise it should work great.

I did use a very large quadcopter to hoist a similar antenna and lots of guy string over a 75ft pine tree. We used a huge bolt, about 3/4" dia and a foot long as a weight for the guy string and I taped a paper clip to a landing foot bent into a hook. I made a loop in the guy string about 3ft from the bolt and that went over the paper clip hook.

We flew the copter up over the tree spooling out the guy string and antenna wire until the copter got up over the back side of the tree then tugged on the antenna wire, which bent the paper clip, freeing the string and the bolt fell down through the tree pulling the guy string and antenna up the tree. It worked perfect.

 

[littona]

The only practical limitations I could think of would be the weight of the wire, possible EMI from the drone, and the battery life of the drone. With regards to battery life, you could do the same with a weather balloon for longer periods of time, but the price of helium these days is insane! You'd want to make sure you're anchored to the ground well and ensure you're following all of the drone flight regulations.

 

[zapman987]

Practical limitation is power use/battery life of the drone. Anther would be cable length to height you want it.

Someone did this question on reddit, where we came up that you would need a power cable, a feed cable, and a big drone for it to host anything moderately decent in antenna size, for it to stay aloft enough to be useful. The power converter stuff would need to either be on the drone, or you would need a DC feed which is slightly impractical to be fed several hundred feet.

 

[jaspence]

There is also an FAA limitation on 400 feet altitude for the smaller drones.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Put a "parrot repeater" on the drone and get it up high.

There are some very small UHF transceivers made by a company called Friendcom that could be connected to a small low cost simplex repeater board.

The person requiring assistance could launch this and use it to relay for help from 400ft AGL.

 

[mmckenna]

Drones, sure, no problem with thin wire. Mounting the antenna ON the drone would likely be an issue as the coaxial cable will be heavy and limit flight time. The cost/benefit of getting the antenna up high for best performance is going to get dragged down by trying to support a long piece of heavy coaxial cable.

But simply flying up a long wire? Sure, been done for years. The old Gibson Girl life boat radios had a helium balloon kit that was used to fly the wire antenna up. I've even seen kite kits for doing it.

 

[WB9YBM]

could I connect a wire to a drone and fly it up a ways for antenna height? What about mounting an actual antenna to the drone and flying it up? What would be the practical limitations of something like this?

1.) how much weight can the drone carry? (A long enough run of coax can get heavy)
2.) Unless you've got really decent coax, there's going to be a point where coax losses outweigh height gain
3.) what's the antenna weight/center of gravity configuration versus drone power/stability? Too big of an antenna, or with the drone's center of gravity getting thrown off-kilter (especially with a cross-wind) could throw the drone off-balance, making it fly erratically or even crash.

Maybe a safer option would be to have the drone carry a scanner to altitude and transmit back to the ground via blue tooth.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Drones, sure, no problem with thin wire. Mounting the antenna ON the drone would likely be an issue as the coaxial cable will be heavy and limit flight time. The cost/benefit of getting the antenna up high for best performance is going to get dragged down by trying to support a long piece of heavy coaxial cable.

But simply flying up a long wire? Sure, been done for years. The old Gibson Girl life boat radios had a helium balloon kit that was used to fly the wire antenna up. I've even seen kite kits for doing it.

The Gibson Girl had a hydrogen generator in a small cannister for the balloon. I think Fair Radio used to sell those. It used chemicals to generate H. A possible solution for a prepper.

 

[prcguy]

The most common drone, the DJI Phantom can easily carry about 2lbs. Its impossible to throw one off balance, they will hover in a hurricane and stay within a few feet of were you park it in the sky. I had them hovering grabbing the landing legs and its impossible to turn one over while its hovering with GPS.

A simplex repeater or cross band repeater using a small hand held radio could work well but I would suspend it well below the copter to reduce RF EMI interference to the hand helds receiver. I have a few small lightweight hand helds that do cross band repeat very well and even with limited flight time you could use that in an emergency to reach a distant repeater for help or ??

1.) how much weight can the drone carry? (A long enough run of coax can get heavy)
2.) Unless you've got really decent coax, there's going to be a point where coax losses outweigh height gain
3.) what's the antenna weight/center of gravity configuration versus drone power/stability? Too big of an antenna, or with the drone's center of gravity getting thrown off-kilter (especially with a cross-wind) could throw the drone off-balance, making it fly erratically or even crash.

Maybe a safer option would be to have the drone carry a scanner to altitude and transmit back to the ground via blue tooth.

 

[mancow]

I have flown wires up with my Phantom 3 PRO using a remote payload drop I got off Amazon. It has a little servo that pulls a rod through a hasp and a small keychain like remote. It worked well.

I've flown up two Bofengs set as a crossband repeater as well.

 

[mmckenna]

The Gibson Girl had a hydrogen generator in a small cannister for the balloon. I think Fair Radio used to sell those. It used chemicals to generate H. A possible solution for a prepper.

Right, Hydrogen, not sure why I typed helium. I'm sure one could have a lot of fun with one of those hydrogen generators….


FirstNet has been playing with tethered balloons to support small LTE cell sites for disasters. But then again, so was Google Loon project.

 

[iMONITOR]

How Much Weight Can A Drone Lift? – 4 Factors That You Must Know

How Much Weight Can A Drone Lift? - 4 Factors That You Must Know

How Much Weight Can A Drone Lift - Factors that affects drone weight lifting capacity - What is Payload in UAV - Things you must know....

ultradvice.com

 

[ArloG]

Right, Hydrogen, not sure why I typed helium. I'm sure one could have a lot of fun with one of those hydrogen generators….


FirstNet has been playing with tethered balloons to support small LTE cell sites for disasters. But then again, so was Google Loon project.

Old military weather balloon trick. Aluminum chips and sodium hydroxide in an O2 bottle. Add water, screw the pipe doped valve in tight and fast. Do it all in a cement block bunker and run. In around 2 hours after it cools you have 2000 psi of hydrogen. Bunker? While it's "cooking" pressure inside the tank gets over 3000 psi. No old scuba tanks guys please!

 

[mmckenna]

Old military weather balloon trick.

Sounds like something a hobbyist would try and then end up in the Darwin award listing.

 

[ArloG]

Sounds like something a hobbyist would try and then end up in the Darwin award listing.

 

[mmckenna]

I always loved military terminology, "Stick, Small, Hardwood. Quantity, one"
And then you have the MRE heater instructions: "Rock or something".

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

I spent some time inside the remains of this concrete structure which had became a radio site. The equipment was installed inside one of many honeycomb "cells" which I believe were for helium stores as they were sealed up real well with tar.

Naval Air Station Richmond

Richmond Naval Air Station | Abandoned Florida

Richmond Naval Air Station is a former WWII blimp base constructed to reduce the number of torpedo attacks off the coast of Florida.

www.abandonedfl.com

 

[trentbob]

I always loved military terminology, "Stick, Small, Hardwood. Quantity, one"
And then you have the MRE heater instructions: "Rock or something".

A military term that comes to mind is... Charlie foxtrot