.

Field Day 2004 part 2

The Balloon Story

Friday evening was our first chance to test balloon #3. If you haven't been following the saga, you may be wondering what happened to its predecessors #1 and #2. I purchased balloon #1 on eBay last year. This was my first eBay purchase of any kind and my wife became quite curious when I first told her that I was in the bidding. Her curiosity rapidly changed to incredulousness as I explained to her that the object of my bidding was a 4' weather balloon. Incredulousness is not a word that I would use on a regular basis but she insists that it best describes her attitude to our project.

So I'll get back to the fate of balloon #1. Following last year's Friday night test flight, our gas man Dave, KG6QCI, insisted that our balloon would be safe and cozy over night if we stuffed it into the back of his SUV. Unfortunately, Dave's plan did not take into account the actions of a certain coyote that decided to stray into the path of Dave's SUV as Dave (and balloon#1) were heading home. As Dave hit the brakes, the cylinder of helium that Dave was also transporting started to faithfully obey Newton's first law of motion (no Heiko, the tank wasn't wearing its seat belt). Within a fairly short period of time, the large gas cylinder found itself traveling at roughly 30 MPH with respect to the Dave's vehicle. Sadly balloon #1 was no match for 235 LBS of flying steel and with a dull pop, it was no more,  Dave's voice temporarily rose a couple of octaves and the coyote went on to live another day.

Balloon #2 was provided by Brian NJ6N, and it gave us excellent service last year supporting out 80' vertical (5/8 on 40M).

Incredulousness (yes… that word again) also describes Steve KF6JVT's wife's attitude when she caught him boiling balloon #3 on their kitchen stove. Steve was not actually trying to make latex soup (or so he claims), instead he was just following the directions that came with his balloon that suggested it be boiled for 5 minutes before use to enhance its strength.

Now I've never been troubled by anything like balloon envy before, but I have to say, when Steve pulled his out of its bag, I was impressed. I mean, as balloons go, it was a whopper. Where as mine and Brian's looked little more than large, anemic party balloons, Steve's was the real thing. He said it was capable of growing to 8' but looking at it, this monster could surely reach 12' when fully inflated.

We turned on the gas and after what seemed like an eternity (probably about 20 minutes), balloon #3 started to tug at its moorings, indicating that it was ready for action. A few final blasts of gas, attach the tether and the antenna and off she goes. There had been some concern that we might not have enough lift. As it turned out, we had more than enough lift. So much that we agreed that a second 60LBS fishing line tether would be needed when we used to the balloon for real on Saturday.

We hooked up the 132' of antenna wire, 4x66' radials and a radio to Bob, W6LFO's, mighty tuner. Using just 15 watts, we received strong signal reports from everyone we called on 80M including Art Bell and his friends on the 3.840 net.

Satisfied that our design was working well, people started to drift off home and get rested for the weekend ahead We had already calculated that, because of the unexpected dimensions of balloon #3, we would have to find a way to store it inflated over night. Re-inflation was not an option since we'd already used more than half of the gas and our helium supplier was not open for business at the weekend. Those of us remaining now started to ponder the now imminent problem of 'how does one transport and store an 8' latex bag filled with helium?'

One suggestion was to just leave it tethered - nobody would even see it - it was dark and the tether was almost invisible. The problem with this idea was that we were concerned that a single tether would not be enough and we had no idea how the balloon would behave should there be a significant increase in wind speed before morning.

A second suggestion was to store the beast under the picnic area roof. This idea sounded promising but we were concerned that the local hooligans (do they have hooligans in Mission Viejo?) might find it and either burst our bubble or give it its freedom.

A third idea was to stuff it into Brian's SUV. Given its size and the fate of its predecessor, this suggestion was dismissed in favor of idea #4.

The forth, and silliest, idea was to pad the bed of my pickup truck with sleeping bags, sit the balloon on the bed, cover it up with a tarp and transport it to my house for the night. So how many hams do you think it takes to gift wrap an 8' jelly fish that in determined to escape, strap it to a truck and transport it 5 or so miles? The answer is 5. The balloon made 3 bids for freedom on its way down La Paz road but after an hour or so the slow moving convoy of 5 vehicles, including one with an 8' undulating blue mushroom, all with lights flashing, made it to the K6RBS QTH.

Once home I took my wife outside to show her our achievement. Incredulousness… yes… you guessed it… plenty of incredulousness as well as loud laughter to the point of tears.

Tony, AE6QT, followed me back to the site on Saturday morning. The OC sheriff that passed us on La Paz paid little attention to our cargo which we delivered safely and still inflated, back to the site.

I have to report that despite our valiant efforts, balloon #3 never got to fly again. Maybe Steve should have used more salt when he boiled it, or maybe we'll never know why balloon #3 decided to spontaneously burst several hours before our planned launch time.

Once again, Brian and balloon #2 came to our rescue. We had ample remaining helium to fully inflate it and, with the help of a 32' fiber glass pole loaned by Heiko, AD6OI, our 80M ½ wave was ready to go an hour or so before dusk.

By all accounts it performed magnificently. I used it on phone Saturday evening and while noisier than the dipole, East Coast signals were up to 4 S points (24 DB!) stronger on the vertical. Dana, K6NR, employed it on 80M CW for the night shift and reported that it worked very well to the East Coast and he had no problems getting heard by everyone that he called.

Once the sun came up, 80m faded out so we reduced the overall length of the antenna down to roughly 80' and we used it as a 5/8 on 40M for the final hour or so of the contest.

K6RBS