80 Meter Dipole Install via Drone

Installing my 80 Meter Dipole with my DJI Mavic was probably not the smartest thing I've ever done but hey, it's me we're talking about. Ive also got some good how to info on building your own no compromise dipole antenna.

[@kevinkc3onohelijeepworld953]

Wow Ballsey with para cord. I ve found it best to use masonry cord. Also might be better to use a servo release and weight vs cut power on the other side of the tree and use quad copter as the weight.

[@thomasstandley6309]

Or a nice bright colored decent fishing line. Good thing those trees were really large bushes impersonating trees. Probably be a plus to get a 46 foot heavy duty push up fiberglass tower to support the center and get it to a respectable height as an inverted V.

[@Shoey00124]

Thanks for the QSO in the IDQP, Bob! You were the only station I could hear consistently the whole time; which is always nice when you are out in the bush.

[@K6UDA]

Thanks

[@martykm6pra114]

Very cool Bob! Glad to have you back!

[@aw7425]

Nice work Bob. Glad you’re settling in

[@temporarilyoffline]

Looking good Bob! Glad you're back on the air!

[@kellyklaask7su990]

Good video! Thanks for participating in the IDQP. Glad you got your antennas up and running. Missed you at lunch Thursday.

[@brianharris9556]

Awesome Bob. Fun seeing you enjoying retirement! 12T1!!

[@ik04]

Being a cargo helicopter pilot, I knew how to build a cargo hook for my quadcopter and used it to drape the 130 foot wire of my 80 meter EFHW over three trees and It worked three times, since the wind broke the wire twice! I tried slings and throwing weights, but the aerial delivery method worked best for me.

[@bobki5nua132]

You sounded good on Idaho QSO party when we chatted. I didn't remember you being on the 705. Glad to see you're getting settled in up in ID.

[@TheNoCodeTech]

Super cool fun! I had thought about the drone thing for hanging wires. Glad it worked out for ya.

[@rickbattle5706]

More adventures from Bob! Fun video. Glad you got the drone to behave and the antenna is up. 73 KB3NG.

[@douglasdreger3852]

Great video. Looking forward to hearing you on 80/75m. BTW your shack and video production room is looking sweet.

[@K6UDA]

Thanks.

[@lindsayhicks8152]

Good video glad to see ya back.

[@9999plato]

they make small lightweight release mechanisms you can attach to the drone so that you can drop a sinker attached to a piece of cord and use that to pull your antenna tensioning line or a pulley up into a tree.

[@DK5ONV]

Funny experiment! You enjoyed yoursself a whole bunch, that's what counts. Happy weekend. 73's from Germany

[@Andy2e0ree]

Great one brother nice to see you making videos again

[@randalltom9750]

Crazy enough, it might work! Bob, you’re a genius... And nobody died, I’m impressed.

[@Fireguy-]

Nice Bob, maybe I'll catch you on 80m sometime. I understand about the low battery auto-land feature. Mine landed in the water at Tomales Bay. "GLUB", yes there was beer involved.

[@bernarrcoletta7419]

That’s a nice piece of land Bob.

[@Jammer.1]

I'm in city with very small lot and used a Jetstream JTCE4B Black Center Insulator for Dipole Wire Antenna and had coax and spool wire to make one to listen to 3.933 lsb/usb on my icom-746 had to run the wire in zigzag and the auto tuner tuned it in really quick & one day wanted test out a old cb i had before i sold it & used the wire found it was tuned just right swr of 1:15 where some the locals talk when conditions are bad or just b.s.ing Both legs was 63' 4" and this was my first homemade try & being only a tech without any electronic training have had make some for other local hams that where stuck with only vertical antenna's ! The drone idea will help get more antennas in the air ! 73's kd9www !

[@stephanevermette145]

I'm planning on doing something similar, but I'm going to bootstrap first by raising some lightweight fishing line rated at something like 80lbs instead of the antenna directly. It might get tricky working around the branches at the time of pulling the fishline across the branches.

[@pgrundle]

You make a boring day in Canada fun! Great video!!

[@K6UDA]

Thanks

[@Blk762x35Out]

I absolutely love this!

[@jptucsonaz8503]

Hi Bob, I am very surprised & impressed that the drone was able to lift that cord in such an unbalanced fashion; i.e. taped to a corner leg. I would thought you would have had to tie it amid ship - center of gravity. Respect to the Mavic! So Bob, when are you gonna hang a huge 160 meter horizontal loop? That'll tune well across the H.F. bands. 😎 See your snow is all gone... looks like we had more snow down here just north of Tucson @ 3300 feet - twice this past week - than you guys had. It was 90° a few days earlier! And 85 today... No! REALLY! Almost 20 years ago it snowed in Tucson (2500 ft.) about 5 inches on Easter... in April!!! Anyway, glad you are able to get out & starting to get setup. 73 - John - N7GHZ

[@steveashwb7veq479]

Oh man! Missed you on IDQP. Catch you on 7QP in may? Or maybe Field Day? Our club will be at Three Island Crossing State Park, Glenns Ferry, if you wanna come out.

[@kenthufford743]

Great action. Good job Bob, or should I call you Chuck or PT? I'm a little surprised that heavy of Paracord worked. Whirlybirds TV show - Chuck Martin (Kenneth Tobey) and Pete "P. T." Moore (Craig Hill)

[@Siskiyous6]

Nice multi-band doublet, and great use of the scientific method, trial and error. I run one as an inverted V off of a trailer mounted tip up, crank up tower. WS7PB.

[@roninsc]

Please, the details of using the 705 driving the KXPA 100. Do you use Elecraft's cables? Settings? Getting full 100 watts out? Elecraft's internal tuner work? So many questions....

[@WA4OSH]

(WA4OSH) Actually, since *the currents oppose each other in the feedline* when the antenna is matched, *so the feeder does not radiate.* Since the currents are in the same line in both sides of the dipole element, it radiates.

[@chesty1369]

Did you find a new bag for your 705 once you mounted it the cage? looking for a bag to put mine in for a little more protection in my backpack. NI0P

[@dougdaniels]

Sweet! I was planning on trying this, but with surveyor's string instead of 550 because I have a Mini 2 and didn't think it was stout enough for the 550. What drone is that?

[@bernarrcoletta7419]

Looks like one of the new DJI Mavic drones with the folding arms

[@K6UDA]

It’s the older mavic pro.

[@forgetyourlife]

The xyl and I made it in to IDQP. Your signal here in OR is much better than it was in CA.

[@hornhospital]

How'd it do on 80/75m?

[@LarryDeSilva64]

Well I have a drone myself never thought of using it to put an antenna in a tree. You were right it is entertaining.

[@richardfitzwell5708]

Nice work on your antenna lift, Bob. You seem happier these days; Idaho is better for you than Cali ever was.

[@Yaegermeister163]

What balun did you connect to the ladder line?

[@K6UDA]

It’s a 4:1 balun

[@hamradiotube]

I’ve only watched the first 8 seconds and I want to put my prediction in. I think this is going to end horribly. Now to continue the video and see how she goes. Post view: Awe man I wanted to see some magic smoke in this video lol! Great way to deploy your very nice home brew antenna though.

[@K6UDA]

Sorry to squash your bet.

[@johnk8091]

For your location, I would use an end fed EFHW with a 49:1, using 3.5 Mhz as the fundamental half wave length. That way you can feed it closer to the shack - no long feeder. Shortish coax so minimal feed line loss with a feepoint that is close to 50 ohms. Much neater than ladder line. And your SWR is low on all harmonic bands - no need for the ATU

[@mbtjr]

The wire fed with ladderline (a doublet) can be extremely efficient on all of the bands though. Assuming one is using a wide-range tuner, you would be able to tune even high SWRs and have extremely low loss because the ladderline has a lot less loss at high SWR. If that were a wire fed with 50 ohm (a dipole), although one could use a wide range tuner and tune up just about anywhere, there would be very high losses if the coax run was long depending upon the SWR present. If one is fortunate enough to have a good quality EFHW, sure they will be able to use all of the typical HF ham bands from 80-10 with minimal loss and no tuner required. I've never used an EFHW yet so i can't speak about it. I'm just stating that his choice to use a doublet gives him all-band performance (assuming a wide-range tuner is used) with very low loss and is a fine option. I'd like some to read some real world reports from real antenna gurus (not most of the KZbin community) regarding efficiency of an 80-10 EFHW vs an 80m doublet with a wide-range tuner.

[@johnk8091]

@@mbtjr You are right about silly youtube comments regarding antennas that they have never used !!! I have been licensed since 1984 - 37 years, and used just about every antenna out there, including my own SteppIR beam. I have built my own EFHW antennas and used them for the last 12 years. I went on a DXpedition to Mozambique using the callsigns C91B and C91J, where our only antenna was an 80-10 EFHW above the sand dunes overlooking the Indian Ocean - we made over 14000 QSO's on our EFHW. The EFHW is hard to beat as a general purpose 80-10 wire antenna. The losses on the coax are negligible since the SWR on the coax is less than 1.5:1. But hey, what do I know right ? :)

[@mbtjr]

@@johnk8091 I'm not sure if you are being sarcastic or not. I admitted to not having used an EFHW yet. I've been licensed since 1991 and used various dipoles / G5RV / ZS6BKW / doublet / delta loop over the years, but never an EFHW. I've been "out of the hobby" since 2014 and am just recently getting back into it after a move to a new QTH. And now EFHWs seem to be all the rage (but mainly hearing this from new hams / portable ops / prepper community). That's why I say that the jury is still personally out for me until I get the opportunity to build an EFHW and put it up. 2014 and prior I don't recall any significant publicity about the EFHW. Glad to hear of your success with an EFHW. 14K Qs is impressive. I'm not doubting any of your claims. I just need to evaluate an EFHW personally before I am convinced of its performance. I was mainly speaking of the efficacy of a doublet. PS: I ordered an EFHW a week ago from the same company you have listed on the C91B page. Hopefully I'll have it up within the next month to try out.

[@mortimersnerd801]

I'll echo that... this is just cryin out for a drone assisted EFHW antenna installation.. only 1 high point needed, so the drone fly's over the highest tree you can find, it could be 100' tall and your antenna becomes an efficient sloper and your coax is your counterpoise... I use an EFHW all the time, 130'.. and work every DX station I hear on 100 watts... the Galapagos on 10 watts. No tuner needed. Once you've tried one you'll never go back.... so convenient as a portable antenna.

[@825saturn]

Hey Bob ! I have some friends that have a Net on 3.760 at 2 am my time, What would be a good antenna for 80 Meters for me to talk to them in Europe ? and could I hook up a 1500 Watt amplifier up to it ? KN4LEI Toccoa , GA 6:36 am 3-27-2022

[@DonDegidio]

Hi Bob, Nice job with the drone. Shame it doesn't work on 40. Did you get that email I sent about the terminated inverted U antenna? You and the family stay safe. 73 WJ3U

[@davidstilwell3973]

What brand and model drone did you use

[@K6UDA]

Its a DJI Mavic Pro

[@ATeamVallejo]

I almost asked the same question😀

[@loctite222ms]

Thought of using a drone. First thing is I'd have to get a drone. Looks like it went about how I'd expect it to. I'll probably use a lower tech method.

[@AliReza-zx8km]

Nice............................................

[@stephenwilliams5201]

My sling shot/fishing reel rig. Does well. it shoots a small length of #8 pound line. Only real problem is watching out for that one ounce sinker bouncing back hi hi. 73 de kv4li good show om

[@ehayes5217]

Really cool w/ the drone, but guess I'm still old school--wud grab a small rock or weight & some light string & fling it over the treetops (underhanded); but still, a great vid, seeing a drone used successfully! 73 de .--/.-/....-/./.-../.-- in TN

[@thefusionelmerguy2234]

Love the drone idea! 73 de KA6SUB Ken

[@ik04]

Just drop the wire and add some 40 meter wires for a good tune. You've gotten the hard part done already!

[@Transmissions]

Is that a Boker Kalashnikov? 😁 I need a drone now…

[@K6UDA]

It is and you do.

[@Transmissions]

Heh, it’s only money! Was thinking about picking up that knife…

[@GraemeKoch]

Great video, thanks Bob, de VK3GEK

[@JayN4GO]

Grab a good 4:1 balun and rock on

[@paul.alarner6410]

i think if fed with ladder/windowline its a doublet not a dipole!

[@o00scorpion00o]

I get great results with the myantennas.com EFHW 8010 no need for tuner except for 160m.

[@ukrainehamradio]

Very good, but assuming you have a drone ...

[@rohnkd4hct260]

LOL What could go wrong?!!

[@johnbuchman4854]

Best part was the feminine product add...

[@K6UDA]

You know those ads are tailored specifically to the viewer. 🤣🤣😂😭