Remember when you were a kid and you wanted to fly like a bird?  Remember how you wanted to get in the air?  Like many of you, I have more than one hobby.  I started realizing that a good number of my activities orbited around getting in the air and getting on the air.  Quadcopters, gliders, balloons, and kites on one hand and amateur radio.

I have started presenting on my experiences with kites and amateur radio.

Here is a PDF document with the items I use and highly suggest:

Kites to Get In The Air to Get On the Air – What You Need, the shopping list (PDF)

Basically, I used:

KITE – http://amzn.to/2xYhTHV – $20.11
In the Breeze Rainbow Conyne Delta Kite, 6-Feet – I used this because the design, basically a box kite with wings, is proven to be stable and second to none as far as being able to, ahem, get in the air even when others cannot (as hams can get the message across, even when others cannot).  I like to say “it’s not the most exciting kite to fly since it goes up when you put it up and comes down when you want it to come down.”

At EBARC Field Day 2017, I flew this kite from around dinner time Saturday night, all night until 11am local time when I took it back down.  I didn’t have to intervene at all, the Caesar Chavez Park near the Berkeley Marina has a steady breeze day and night and is enjoyed by many kite enthusiasts, especially during Kite Festival.

By the way, the price is such that you might want to get more than one since, to create even more lift, you can fly them on the same line (I will show you how to do that later).  Just be careful how many you add since they really do create a lot of lift and in even medium winds you may need a helper to bring down three or more.

Another thing you can do with more than one kite is use each kite to haul up a different part of your antenna system.  Two kites on a single line can hold up the center of a dipole with feedline, and the ends can be suspended using one kite each.  You’re still way under the budget of any equivalent tower, and you get to FLY A KITE, or several!