Paul Wrote:
Stick with the fiberglass mast because I have an even more horrible
mental image of your escaped balloon or kite supported antenna
wrapped across a high tension line and some poor little kid reaching
up for it.
Check out New Jersey QRP Club's website for a great article on making
& using kites for antenna supports. It should be applicable to
balloons as well. The relevant point: use MUCH lower strength line
from your antenna connection point to the kite than you use from the
antenna down to the ground. If you lose control of the kite, the
line will break at the connection point, and the antenna will fall
straight down. Of course, you would ANCHOR the line at the ground in
order for this to work, so it would be impossible to drag your rig
off, anyway.
<snip completely unneccessary comment, and signature line>
Folks have used kites & baloons for all sorts of stuff for centuries
(remember the Montgofier brothers? 1873 first manned balloon
flight) It obviously *can* be done safely. But also, folks die
every year from doing it *not* so safely, so use yer noggin!
I have no connection w/NJQRP yadda yadda....
