Helium lifted vertical?

[DeepBlue]

Did a quick search for this but didn't see much on it. For an overnight camping trip in Northern Canada, wondering about a larger partry Helium Balloon pulling a very light wire (PolyStealth 26 maybe) to make WinLink contact and some later night HF fun from the tent. Thoughts? You can get tanks of the stuff at places like Target these days for party balloons. Not sure what's out there in the way of larger party balloons but it only needs to hold for 48 hours really. I know they will all leak out eventually. Helium is small and leaks out of the pores in the rubber. Thinking maybe an 80m vert at night.

Sean
KB8JNE

 

[Hit_Factor]

Sounds like fun.

I thought there is a shortage of He, maybe it's just H, going on.

 

[56FB666]

 

[mmckenna]

The old "Gibson Girl" life boat HF radios had an option for balloon lifted antennas. They used a hydrogen generator, but no reason it wouldn't work with lighter wire and helium.

 

[DeepBlue]

a typical round balloon would tend to go somewhat horizontal in stronger winds but the blimp types (shaped) would tend to float with the wind and correct somewhat. There were "lifting kites" used as far back I believe as the Civil War for scouts. Poly 26 is super light and used in antennas. Just a thought. As I look at the pricing, it may not be worth it though. My old 33' fiberglass pole with an end fed sloper is looking pretty good right now. And, correct. That's a big NO on the H vs He.

Sean

 

[spongella]

Think it's a great idea. Let us know how you made out.

As for H, yes it can be explosive if ignited. As kids we'd take the zinc metal from dry cells and put them in sulfuric acid then hold a pill vial over the zinc metal as it bubbled and formed H gas. Then took a match and held it over the vial, what a pop we got out of it. Fun days.

 

[KB4MSZ]

If you do go the Hydrogen route let us know if it works out. We will already know if it doesn't work out.

 

[spongella]

Can you even buy H these days without getting thrown in the hoosegow? I had to wait for a cashier to okay my buying a can of Rustoleum spray paint while at the Walmart self-check out the other day....

 

[prcguy]

I've done a number of kite hf wire antennas and a friend did a helium filled weather balloon once. In all cases the antenna wire used as the kite string was at a 20deg and maybe 30deg angle above ground at best making a low horizontal antenna. This is with a very strong wind and the kite adjusted for max height and for the balloon very little wind, less than 5mph.

If you want to get close to a vertical wire with a kite or balloon you need to tie the antenna wire to the kite or balloon and have a separate kite string waaaaay upwind to hold the kite. Your antenna height above ground will then be whatever length kite string you have upwind and the angle of the string.

 

[popnokick]

This blimp vertical is what we've used for two of our last four years of Field Day. Works GREAT and on more than just 80M with a tuner. HOWEVER.... weather is a MAJOR factor. And that is why we haven't been able to "fly" the blimp antenna for all four years with our Field Day operation. I have a video of the blimp in flight but apparently too large to upload here.

 

[zz0468]

There are light weight portable antenna masts for that sort of purpose. I'd use one of those, guy it with nylon rope, and use an open wire fed dipole and a tuner. That way, you're not dependent on a good RF ground like you would be with a vertical antenna. You could also support the dipole in the center with a balloon. All in all, though, I don't recommend using an unbalanced antenna like a vertical.

 

[prcguy]

Balloons can only hold up so much weight and a dipole would have to be made of especially thin wire so it doesn't pull the balloon down. Usually a single very thin wire is used as a sloping end fed or vertical with ground plane. If you use a separate "kite string" keeping the wire vertical it can work especially well on 80 and 160m where its otherwise difficult to erect a 65ft or 133ft vertical element. You can also use 1/2 wavelength of wire and feed it with a 64:1 transformer and you won't need a ground plane with that.

Without a separate kite string I found the slightest wind pushes the balloon way off to the side resulting in an extreme wire angle and not so good for anything but NVIS on 80 or 160m.

There are light weight portable antenna masts for that sort of purpose. I'd use one of those, guy it with nylon rope, and use an open wire fed dipole and a tuner. That way, you're not dependent on a good RF ground like you would be with a vertical antenna. You could also support the dipole in the center with a balloon. All in all, though, I don't recommend using an unbalanced antenna like a vertical.

 

[TheSpaceMann]

Heard some hams are now using tethered drones to support vertical wire antennas! Might be a way to beat a HOA!

 

[W5lz]

PRCGUY - You were doing fine till you got to that 'no groundplane' part...

 

[CM1]

I'd often thought about constructing/doing something like this (for use with a scanner) just to for fun. I never planned out any details, but I thought about using a thin coax (as the kite string) to a "rubber duck" in the kite. On the bottom I was going to attach an additional length of wire to the coax shield, and use a short ground rod.

Don't know if it would work, but maybe someday I'll put one together and head to the beach to try it out. My only dilemma (and I welcome input on this) is a determing what coax to use that would be flexible/light enough to fly a kite (act as the kite string), but still carry a signal down.

 

[W5lz]

Coax for the tether? I sort of doubt that'll work. It's heavy, not made to do that sort of strain, and for VHF/UHF stuff the losses would probably not be great, or too great. As far as the rubber-duck goes, why? Use a bigger antenna!

 

[poltergeisty]

Back in circa '96 I have always thought about doing that. Never knew today hams do this now. I always thought about having guy wires around the balloon to keep it in one spot. The balloon would have a mesh around it for the guy wires or sting if you will. I'm sure fishing line could do it. And that Spider Wire stuff is pretty strong.

 

[Lauri-CoyoteFrostbite]

Years ago on a Pacific island we tried a balloon vertical antenna. It was intended to be for receiving only- until someone got the bright idea to try it transmitting also.

More on that in a moment.

We had an unlimited supply of large weather balloons- balloons that when inflated were over 7 feet in diameter. They were supposed to be used to carry weather radio sounding devices- "Radiosondes'- but we put them to other uses. A 7-8 foot balloon will lift a considerable weight (.....and did we try inflating several, tying them together with a primative harness- going 'moon walking' ? One Guess.)

One of those balloons easily lifted a hundred feet of a phosphor-bronze antenna cable, the type used as a trailing antenna by military aircraft. We proposed as a novel VLF receiving antenna- for which it did quite well.
Then, in an off-hour, some bright person decided to try it for transmitting (she will remain nameless. )
The frequency must have been just perfect to produce a whopping RF voltage at the tip where the antenna cable attached to the balloon (can we conjur up a Tesla coil ?)

"Key down"-- there was a faint "poof" overhead. No one saw the balloon vapourize, but a second later down came +hundred feet of heavy bronze wire, cascading all over everyone concerned. Quite spectacular.
When order was once again re-establish, the next balloon had two 'dog bone' ceramic insulators in series with a parachute**. Funny thing was, we didn't try transmitting with it again.

_________________________________________


I have flown many balloons- from the small 'Pi-Balls' (aka Pilot Balloons) used for wind directs, shears- etc., to the massive Mylar behemoths.

Helium is expensive and for the big balloons we used hydrogen. Hydrogen has a bad reputation- it is flammable, but it is not explosive. That is, if you don't mix it with oxygen. Its is extremely light and the gas burns upward with a "fush!"- very little heat or side flames. Personally I think its far safer than dealing with anything like propane, butane or gasoline.
Its down side is its small molecular size. Hydrogen seeps right thru latex balloons- and a static one will not stay up long. Helium is lot better. Use a Mylar- like material for both, it at all possible,
Both gases are available in compress'd cylinders - another safety issue/lecture right there-- (ever see what happens when the valve assembly on a 5 foot tank gets shear'd off when some one gets careless ?.... 2000 Psi suddenly released thu a >1" bore ?-- You don't want to be anywhere around one ! - that's why there are those caps on those cylinders, btw) -
Specialty gas companies (we used Airco a lot) have both Helium and Hydrogen.

Happy Flying !

Lauri


**
Always when free flying any device include a parachute- the last thing you want is your 'sonde hurtling down into a school playground full of kids !. All our radiosondes included them, but no one thought to use it for that Pacific island static balloon.
"Experience teaches a tough school
but fools will learn in no other...."

 

[TheSpaceMann]

Easiest way is to have a balloon (or tethered drone) support a thin wire vertical!

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

I always wanted to operate SSB while huffing some Helium. The operator on the other end would think his radio was wonky.

Sent from my SM-T350 using Tapatalk