LF: kite antenna Mk2

[Andre Kesteloot]

Peter Martinez wrote:

> >From Peter Martinez G3PLX Kendal Cumbria.
>
> After no activity over the easter weekend, because the wind has
> been in the north and I cannot fly the kite when that is the case, the
> forecast was for south wind on Sunday 19th, and this wind
> materialised at about 10:30 am and gave me a chance to check out
> the Mk2 kite, with 60 lb. nylon line and separate antenna wire.
>
> This time I got the full 300ft of wire aloft, although there did not seem
> to be much activity. I worked G6NB at 559 both ways, and worked
> G4JNT to make the first-ever two-way PSK31 contact. This mode
> uses 31 baud BPSK in a 31Hz bandwidth to give a 50wpm
> keyboard-to-screen contact. The audible reports were 549 both
> ways, and at this level the copy was 100% both ways, so this
> represents a very significant improvement in contact quality
> compared with hand-sent morse at that signal level. I hope more
> stations can come on this mode.
>
> Also worked G3KEV again, but heard nothing else. The Mk2 kite
> has a mechanism to pull a pin and let the wings fold back when the
> line tension exceeds about 20kg. and lets the kite float down gently
> on the end of it's line. This happened at about 3 pm when the
> windspeed got too high, but at least I got to the antenna wire before
> the sheep did!
>
> 73
> Peter G3PLX, Kendal.