I have 80 ft trees that are used to hold up several antennas. I have used 2 methods.
The most accurate is a Drone that I have used for years that was built from a parts from Hobby King and the Wii controller. I use a servo to pull a pin that allows the payload to drop. It can easily lift enough weight to pull a 15 pound kevlar fishing line over the tree, but I have found that you have to fly at least twice as high as the tree to allow gravity to do its work. From there, I pull back the poly binder twine and then I use that to pull the final antenna line, usually some sort of UV protected Kevlar. You can't do this with a $40 kids drone as it won't lift enough weight and it just scary to fly. I had pictures of me doing it in published in QST many years ago (maybe 6-8 years ago). My next go to is an Air Cannon that fires a payload of 2 AA batteries taped together and the same 15 pound fishing line. I find this to work well enough, but it can go a little further than I want to go considering I am dealing with a forest. It takes about 50 psi to fire the payload over the 80ft trees without effort. The batteries are in a 1/2" pvc pipe (I think... I built it a long time ago). In Canada, I got most of the parts are a local hardware store, but Harbor Freight int he US should work just fine. My inverted L goes between 2 trees and I now have a small bullet block at the apex of the L with 10ft of UV protected shock cord holding the block. At the end of the antenna, another 10ft of UV protected shock cord is used to ensure that swaying trees in 40 knot winds do not destroy the antenna. I find this works very very well. My biggest problem with the 160M with elevated radials is that the resonance point of the antenna can vary about 40khz depending on if the ground is frozen or not. When it is frozen, the resonance point slides up the band. Once thawed, it moves back down. I find that I have to add about 6ft to the antenna in the winter and then take it out in the summer. Mike va3mw > _________________ Searchable Archives: http://www.contesting.com/_topband - Topband Reflector