<snip> "...A kytoon or advertising blimp might be the ticket. I
used a 36" balloon and it was blown down onto the water for part of the
night. Still, I doubled the number of QSOs I ever made from land...."<snip>
Dave KH6AQ
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In 1997, Dennis K7BV(sk), Doug, VE1PZ and I (VE9AA) operated as CY9AA
(N.Isl.) in the summer for 9 or 10 days.
Part of that operation included nightly 160m ops, mostly by Doug. We had
hoped the VLF tower would've still been there to tap into, but it was 100%
gone. Who knows where it went.
As a back up plan, intrepid lowbander Doug, VE1PZ had brought some helium,
some twine and I brought a spool of very fine wire.
We filled a large speciality balloon with helium and also tied into the
remaining ground screen there on St. Pauls' Island and worked EU before
Sunset, night after night. In due course we eventually lost our 2 or 3
balloons due to it being pushed down by the high N.Atlantic winds onto the
jagged rocks so ended up using double layer green garbage bags (etc.) to get
the antenna up each night for a few hours. (I think the pores in the garbage
bags were too large for helium so it leaked out fast) but in any case we had
some nice comments about our FB 160m signal until we ran out of garbage
bags. I think Doug may have even worked some of that DX on SSB. I don't
recall for sure. If he reads this list he can fill you in. Most of the low
band credit goes to him.
The stuff memories are made of. A balloon vertical over salt water.
Working EU and W6 in the middle of the summer on Top Band.
Awesome.
Mike VE9AA..ex CY9AA, ex CY0AA ex-a bunch of calls.
Mike - Keswick Ridge, NB, Canada
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