Or should that be Kites In the Air? What’ll we do now? asked Harry, on a nice warm March day. Well I’ve got a kite in the waggon said Dave ZL1DL. [ Why are we not surprised as what comes out of the back of Dave’s waggon? – ED]. So we gathered a light wire antenna, IC705 and kite. Then off to the West lawn we went.
The near vertical cliffs at MP direct the prevailing breeze upwards, and then over the land mass, resulting typically, in a calm on the peninsular at ground level, but a nice breeze above. Just the ticket for kite flying. So up went the kite, and once it was in reasonably reliable breeze ( around 20m of line payed out), we clipped on the antenna and continued to pay out the kite line until we had a quarter wave on 40m up in the air. Attached the lower end of the antenna to Harry’s magic match and then to the 705. A couple of minutes later, Harry was making contacts, including one to the top of the South Island. Not too bad for around midday on 40m. An interesting alternative to pole mounted or tree supported antennas.
It does require someone to control the kite to ensure the antenna doesn’t try to rip itself free, or lift the radio away… Not likely given the kite size, but there is a relationship between wind strength and lift! Hopefully others might try their luck at KOTA and we can have K2K contacts !
Update: 26/3/25. In the interests of improving signal strengths, Harry and Dave carried out a quick proof that the kite would raise a 1/2 wave antenna on 40m. It did. That was with around 100m of kite line let out. The thinking is that is by using a half wave radiator, with the antenna current maximum being elevated to half way up the antenna, we may achieve even better results 🙂
To be continued…