FWIW I saw a golf ball launcher in the Cheaper Than Dirt catalog that is a tube which looks like a giant suppressor that screws onto the muzzle of an AR-15. You chamber a blank, drop in the ball and you're supposed to be able to launch the ball 200 yds. or so. It's so incredibly stupid that it is probably totally fun AS LONG AS USED IN A SAFE MANNER. Talk about a way to loft a golf ball over the tallest tree for antenna stringing as long as you're out in the middle of nowhere so you don't put the ball through the neighbor's 2nd story window or have the ball land in the middle of a garden party three blocks down if the string breaks.
Obviously I'm not really suggesting you do this but it is something to think about should the proper circumstances present themselves. Bill AD5OL ________________________________ From: "Rick McClelland, AA5S" <aa5s.r...@gmail.com> To: flexradio@flex-radio.biz Sent: Sat, July 16, 2011 9:57:00 PM Subject: [Flexradio] Antenna hanging: revisited I saw a posting not long ago from a guy who hung a wire antenna by using a golf ball with some type of small turnbuckle driven through to hold a fishing line. Today, I tried using a golf ball and a cotter pin that I bought from Home Depot. I used a C-clamp vice-grip to hold the ball as I drilled a hole through the center. The cotter pin fit perfectly and was nearly flush with the golf ball on both sides. I bought a couple hundred yard roll of fishing line and pulled about 100 feet onto the ground, cut it from the roll and tied it to the cotter pin. I'm not a great athlete but I was able to zing the golf ball about 40' up into a willow tree and pull my rope through. I've been at my present QTH for about two months and my temporary antenna had been a single band 40 meter end fed dipole at 20' but now I have a 2 band end fed (Par Electronics EF-20/40) at 40'. This is a nice improvement and it was much cheaper using a golf ball than buying a super-de-duper, tennis-ball rocket launching contraption to accomplish the same thing. Admittedly, the super-de-duper tennis ball rocket launching contraption can get a line 100' into a tree but if your needs are more modest, I recommend a golf ball, a cotter pin and hand launching the golf ball. It works in some fairly challenging situations. --- Rick McClelland, AA5S Fort Collins, CO _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/ _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flexradio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flexradio.com/
