QRP adventures with kite launched antennas

Mike Pittaro, KJ6VCPMay 18th 2020

Portable Operating – My Constraints

● Portable

– Carryable, not ‘Luggable’

– One or two bags or backpacks

– Airline friendly, Hiking friendly

● Simple

– Quick setup, quick tear down

– Nothing complicated

– Be on the air, operating, not messing around

Portable Operating – The Setup

● Yaesu FT-818

– All Band, All Mode

– 6 Watts RF output

– No Tuner

● Extras

– Battery – Li-Ion, 5.6 AH

– Headset – Koss SB-45

– Custom USB audio and rig control cable

– Laptop

– Antenna

– Kite

End-Fed Half Wave Antenna

½ ƛ Dipole

Feedpoint ~ 70 Ω

½ ƛ Wire.1 ƛ Counterpoise

Feedpoint ~ 3500 Ω

End-Fed Half Wave – Kite setup

Shock Cord - 5M

Stake

Kite

MatchRadioStake

Antenna

Ground

Kite Line

1 M Ω resistor(static bleed)

Matching Unit – 70:1 Impedance Transformer

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Matching Unit – Connections and Adjustments

Shack on the Beach

●

On The Air !

● 20 M vertical ½ wave

– 18 AWG

● Ultrafoil 30 kite

– 30 FT2 / 3 M2

● The results

– P4/KJ6VCP

– 12 FT-8 contacts

– 0 SSB contacts

– Reached Grid EN82 (Ontario)

Observations and Surprises

● It worked !

● It was all back-packable

● Aruba is kind of a desert

● The ground is coral, under a few inches of sand

● Sun wiped out the Laptop

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