On 6/26/2014 4:12 PM, Rick Bates, WA6NHC wrote:
This may be off topic, but in light of it being Field Day Weekend in the US....
It's radio, Eric will probably see it as relevant, unless we overdo it, which we do at times. :-)
The arrow has an issue because it gets hung up or in branches and doesn't have enough mass to pass through some branches or allow gravity to pull it down. Should it comes later, the risks of impalement can ruin the day.
I wrapped some heavy, old solder I had around the arrow tip in two layers, and then wrapped that with electrical tape. So far, it's always come down ... sometimes takes a little while with wind moving the branches. The two layers of solder make the tip very blunt, impalement is unlikely, bruise maybe if you don't have a hat on.
Regardless of how you do it, my experience is that an Inv-V with the apex pulled up close to a limb but with the legs pulled out from the tree works just fine. It's hard to beat a horizontal 80m dipole with the center between two 90 ft pine or fir trees more than a wavelength apart, but sometimes we obsess about antennae minutiae.
The slingshot can improve over the arrow by increasing mass but can be equally dangerous. Accurate shots are challenging.
Arrow works better for me in the field, but the slingshot is a lot smaller and lighter. There's a reason arrows are long although the sling worked for David, I guess.
73, Fred K6DGW - Northern California Contest Club - CU in the 2014 Cal QSO Party 4-5 Oct 2014 - www.cqp.org ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
