AKBiocca Engineering

Well, it looks like we are going to make it to the Visalia DX convention here in less than a month. (more…)

We will be doing another Antenna Launcher presentation (more…)

News prior to 4/2/2006 will be collected here from the web pages it was on previously.

• 4/06: qsl.net had some problems the last week or so. We were already working on a new website on new servers, so I quickly pushed out the old site to the new servers. A site reface is in the works, but it will take awhile. Look for new features here in the future. Find us now at antennalaunchers.com. With or without the www. We will work on cleaning up the site as we have time.
• 3/06: We will have a table at the DX Convention at Visalia again this year. Look for us there. We’ll bring a few launchers.
• 3/06: We did a presentation at a local ham club meeting recently in El Sobrante. It was a lot of fun. Going to do another this coming week in Marin. Hope to see you there!
• 3/06: Looks like Dayton changed their minds about allowing us a presentation session, though they were positive at first. Now they don’t respond to requests. Emcomm West did the same last year. A note to forum chairpersons - if for some reason you are unable to accept a forum it would really be appreciated if the speaker was advised of this. We are checking with the San Diego convention to see if they still have forum slots.. They do!!
• 2/06: New - the PADS Web Page are up and a new PADS Kit is on the Order Page.
• 1/06: Have returned from Quartzsite. Quartzsite was a lot of fun, plan to do it again next year! Will work through existing orders. Have received new stock of 2.5″ SDR21 barrel material.
• 1/06: Super+Zip Kits added. The Zip Reel is included in place of the fishing reel mount in the Super-II kit. The Zip Reel is assembled and preloaded with 150 yards of Spectra line. The Super+Zip kit does not include the fishing reel mount normally included with the Super Kit since the Zip Reel users don’t need this.
• 1/06: Super Kits upgraded to Super-II kits by adding the pressure safety relief valve and the 1/8 NPT Tap. The tennis balls supplied now are new (previously they were used in good condition). As before, these kits contain 3 Prepared Tennis balls, a Ramrod kit, a Reel Mount, the Epoxy kit and the Launcher Parts Kit.
• 12/05: I will be attending Quartzfest at Quartsite the week of January 22-28. Emails during that time will probably have to wait, I do not expect to have internet access from the desert! I will be doing a Pneumatic Antenna Launching presentation at 10:30 on Thursday morning. Hope to see you there!
• 10/05: Lately there has been some interest in launching antenna wire directly towed by the ball. This has been done succesfully. More testing is likely ahead. The wire must be strong and light, AND THERE MUST BE NO POWER LINES in the vicinity. The Zip Reel will feed small wire pretty well, but more testing is indicated. Range of the launcher is of course reduced. A weaker section of line should be tied between the ball and the wire to facilitate getting the wire back even if the ball catches. When enough data is available a separate web page may be prepared.
• 10/05: Received an invitation to the Southwestern Convention in San Diego 2006, so we’ll probably do a presentation down there.
• 9/05: NEW Field Test Results for CSV19 and CSV17 - measurements with the two new demo launchers and the new Teflon coated Line. These are the same as the kits currently shipping, with SDR21 barrels. The weather was cool and sunny, and the elevation was 5000 feet. CO₂ was used. The projectile was a 4 ounce ball, the reel was Eric’s Zip reel loaded with 50 pound teflon coated Spectra line. The CSV19 was filled to 50 psi and the ball launched 154 feet. The CSV17 was pressurized to 80 psi and the ball flew to 159 feet. These heights do not include the 10 feet of height of the muzzle, they are a measure of the line towed up by the ball.
• 9/05: Launchers in Finland - there has been a lot of interest lately from Finland in the launchers. Shipping to Finland adds about $20 to $50 (in addition to normal shipping rates) depending on weight and mode. Surface shipping is quoted as 4 to 6 weeks, Airmail is 4 to 10 days. If buying a kit don’t forget a tap (included in Super-II kits) as those are probably not commonly available there. We cannot ship PVC cement, but there is a locally available cement that is designed for PVC and has worked out well. It is made by TANGIT and is the variety made for PVC-U (rigid PVC). (Thanks to Benny OH9NB for the cement tip). We can ship the epoxy, so the Full Kit is a good choice. Add the tap, perhaps a Zip Reel, or your fishing reel and line, compressed air and go! (Assembly required).
• 9/05: We had a good time at the SJVARS Harvest Hamfest. We did a presentation and there was a lot of interest.
• 9/05: We have obtained some schedule 80 1″ PVC pipe for the chamber to valve connection on the CSV19 and CSV17. This increases the strength of the launcher.
• 9/05: Updated the photo of the CSV19 below. The new photo is of my new model built with the current parts, so what you see is what you get, if you order a kit here. It has the new cable tie and spacer strengthening the barrel to chamber. I am experimenting with spacers - at the moment I’m using 3/4″ dowel. (Update - now using a small block of grey PVC).
• 9/05: Further reduced graphics content (made clickable links for some photos). I also put together a Python script for uploading the website. It figures out which files are changed and loads only those to the site. Very convenient, and it will help me update the site more easily and more often.
• 8/05: We will be at the upcoming San Joaquin Valley Hamfest with a presentation on Launchers. SJV Hamfest Site My wife will have a Cookie Lee Jewelry table, and I will be there part of the time. Come by and see us. We will also be at Pacificon. Pacificon Site.
• 8/05: We have one report of a CSV launcher breaking by dropping it. I now have some tooling to drill out and replace the snapped off 1″ pipe. To increase the strength of your launcher it is advisable to put a spacer between the barrel and chamber and a nylon or velcro cable tie around the barrel/chamber to hold them together. I will supply this on future units and kits. The difficult part is the spacer - it needs to be different heights depending on how your launcher is glued up. I can supply the cable tie and a nominal spacer, but there may be some adjustment required in the spacer’s height. If you have a launcher that is broken we may be able to repair it, or drill out the sockets so you can. Contact me via email.
• 4/05: We had a good time at the recent DX convention in Visalia. Met quite a few folks interested in Antenna Launching. If your DXpedition location has tall trees the little CSV17 launcher would make a good tool. If you like to do a little DXing from portable locations you can put up some impressive antennas with a launcher and some good trees. We have done Vee beams that were higher performance than just about any practical commercial beam. Even a dipole has pretty good low angle radiation when it is 100 feet above ground on a hill with local terrain falling off. The noise levels are usually lower as well.
• I have been working on a smaller launcher called the CSV17. It is a 17 inch version of the CSV19 and it has a 3″ diameter chamber instead of the CSV19’s larger 4″ chamber. The smaller launcher fits nicely into an available hard case, perfect for travel. The CSV17 works well with a 12 gram CO₂ cylinder using a bicycle tire filling adapter. It also pumps up very fast with a hand or foot pump. The CSV17 will easily reach 150 feet plus with a 4 oz ball towing line. The CSV17 is available now on the order page. The CSV17 in a case is called the PADS - Pneumatic Antenna Deployment System. This is available in Kit form, see PADS Kit.
• If your ham club would like a presentation on Pneumatic Antenna Launching Systems, and it is not too far away from Berkeley, CA drop me a line. We did this at Pacificon and it was well attended.
• We generally attend the Livermore flea market and the NORCAL QRP meeting on the first sunday of the month, and bring along our launcher (and balun) kits. We’ve also attended a FARS Ham-Tech Day at SLAC recently: www.fars.k6ya.org/amtechday and will probably go to some of these in the future. If you can attend one of those events to pick up your parts it will save the shipping and handling. Let me know ahead of time so we will have the parts and make sure we meet. I also generally attend the Dayton hamfest though I may not be able to bring too much along on that trip. We usually attend Emcom West, and Pacificon, Visalia and the SJVARS Hamfest.
• We now have 2.5″ SDR21 PVC pipe. This is slightly thinner than Schedule 40, is rated for 200 psi and fits tennis balls very nicely and weighs a bit less. It is quite smooth inside. We will be using this on most launchers and kits. Great stuff! If you are interested in getting some of this material see the Online Order Form or drop me an email.
• I am still working on a Compact Coaxial valve launcher. This project started quite some time ago but has been building steam and most of the parts are made. I still am working out a few kinks before final assembly but that should begin soon. The flow of this valve is six times the flow of a 1″ sprinkler valve, so the performance should be impressive. I don’t expect this launcher to be easy to reproduce due to all the components and machining required. It will show us what can be accomplished in a small overall length package. (note this work is again on hold. 5/05)
• Pacificon 2004 has come and gone now. They changed the time of our presentation twice, so some folks probably missed it (I nearly missed it myself!). Our presentation started out in the dark via flashlighting, since there was a local area power outage, and halfway through the lights came back on so we were able to show some of the slides and the video. We will be putting the video up on the web soon, hopefully, though it is a bit large. Here is the slide show in pdf (large file). I am also working on updating the CSV19 web pages. Thanks to all that attended and came by and chatted with us. Here is the Pacificon Website.
• CSV19 Kits and Mini-Kits - I have Kits and Mini-Kits for the CSV19 launcher to help you get a quality Antenna Launcher going with less effort and fewer tools. The Mini Kit includes the hard parts - The ones bored out on the lathe - so folks can duplicate this design with basic tools. This includes the prepared sprinkler valve, the bored end caps and the fitted parts that go with them. Visit our new Online Order Form or the CSV19 Antenna Launcher pages for more details. The remaining parts can be found in hardware stores, or in the full kit, which is also available.
• The Mini CO₂ Charging System is working quite well. I have been using 12 oz paintball CO₂ cylinders with it, and getting lots of launches (approx 30) from one $3 fillup. It gets a bit cold if it is used in cool weather, but it has not been a problem at the low rate of launches that we usually need. This is certainly not a required Antenna Launching accessory but it is extremely convenient. Several tests conducted have not found much difference in height between CO₂ and air at the same pressure. We have added this to our new Online Order Form.
• The Berkeley Gorilla line has been reaching about 20% higher height than the previous Dacron twisted kite line. I suspect that the lines work best when new, and as they get a bit fuzzy the height is reduced due to drag. I got 35 pound test Gorilla Line at Wallmart, but next time I think I will follow Eric’s lead and get the 50 pound test variety.
• 11/04: Finally found SDR21 barrel material! It is thinner, lighter and rated to 200 psi instead of the 300 psi that 2.5″ schedule 40 is rated for. It weighs about a half pound less in a 16″ length, so it will be noticeably lighter than the schedule 40. Eric did some testing and it helped the launch height at low pressure but made no difference above 100 feet or so. Drop me an email me if you are interested in some 2.5″ SDR21.
• I have really been enjoying the CO₂ system. I get about 30 shots from a 12 ounce paintball bottle. That is more than we used on Field Day this year, and we put up a lot of antennas.
• 7/04: How would you like to pressurize your launcher in 5 seconds with a several pound charger that you can carry around with you or even mount to the launcher? I’m working on a couple of different systems for this, all based on CO₂. The key to this is two things - refillable paintball CO₂ cylinders and a top quality pressure regulator. Since CO₂ is around 800 psi we need a pressure regulator for safety and practicality. The Low Pressure (0-300 psi) version of the Palmer Pursuit Stabilizer is designed to mount directly on the paintball bottle screw threads and regulate the pressure. It is available in a number of configurations, the most convenient of which has a schrader tire filler valve directly mounted. This is plug and play CO₂! You get a regulator and one or more bottles, take the bottles to the local paintball CO₂ filling station to get them filled, screw on the regulator and start filling your launcher. The small launchers we are using currently get about 2 to 5 launches per ounce of CO₂, so a 12 ounce CO₂ bottle will give you about 25 to 60 launches. You can get up to 20 or even 24 ounce bottles for more capacity, and of course can have several bottles on hand. I selected the 12 ounce as a good compromise between size, weight and capacity, though the the 20 ounce was very tempting as well. The 8 or 9 ounce bottles are really convient and small, so you have to decide! The cost for CO₂ around my area comes to about ten cents per launch. I’m still going to use a compressor for my megalaunching testing sessions, but when doing actual field antenna work it is quite inconvenient to have to trudge back to the compressor each time. It is also safer to pressurize right at the time of the launch, and minor leaks are not so much of an issue. In addition, the whole launching system, including the CO₂ system will fit into the Rubbermaid tote along with the launcher.
• 6/04: My Turbo Valve launcher is leaking again. Based on this, I can’t really recommend using cyanoacrylate with PVC. It seems to get a good joint, but fails later. I had only used the CA to seal some leaks, but it failed even to do this on a reliable basis. My first repair of the repair with epoxy has been 85% effective. I think I will have to set up to use vacuum to draw the cement into the cracks for a better result.
• Field Day 2004 was a great workout for the launchers. We used three of my launchers and Eric’s Trident (but using only one bottle) and put up two HF beams, a 40 meter sloper and a multiband inverted Vee. Eric’s CO₂ system worked well. My little compressor took longer and made more noise. Have to check into a CO₂ upgrade We shot some video and are deciding what to put on the websites
• The Dacron kite line seems to grab too much air and have too much friction on the tree. I’m going to look into the higher tech fishing/kite lines as they do seem to perform better.