We have reached that point in the year when we are going to have to cut off orders for Christmas. Orders placed now will be shipped prior to Christmas. Orders after the cutoff will ship in January. The cutoff will be sometime in the next few days (12/3), so don’t wait too long!

Orders already in the que are being processed now and will be shipped shortly. My helpers have other seasonal jobs so it is a bit of a challenge getting orders out right now.

Thanks for your patience.

We have come to that point in our program where we have time and parts for only a few more shipments before Field Day. Orders placed after 10 June 2011 will be shipped in July. Orders through June 10 will ship before Field Day.

Hope to speak with  you on the air during Field Day. Our Field Day group will probably be using the call Whiskey Six Power Supply again this year. Dave has a great callsign for Field Day. We use the best call from the members present, so some years it changes. Whiskey Bravo Six Whiskey is another call we have used in past years, but Glenn has moved far enough away that he probably won’t make many of our group Field Days in the coming years.

Have a Great Field Day, and for those wondering what we are talking about you can visit the following website:

Field Day

In April QST Hints and Kinks column, page 59 there is a short article by Duncan, WV1J regarding his Antenna Launching experiments. He had the usual problems with slingshots and crossbows and considered RC Helicopters (we thought about that, too, long ago but decided not to attempt it either). Duncan proceeded to try a new idea, or really a variant on a very old idea – the slingshot. Years ago I built a large slingshot for Antenna Launching, but Duncan went a step farther and built a REALLY LARGE slingshot. Based on commercially available water balloon launchers, this monster has a claimed range of 150 yards!

Duncan built a large slingshot of 1.5″ PVC and anchored it with guys and stakes and put the water balloon launching rubbers on it. On one occasion the stakes pulled out and it hit him pretty hard, nearly causing injury. Ouch! (NOTE – PVC can shatter, it is recommended to put wood doweling inside to give it more strength for applications like this).

Duncan reports that this launcher is good for 60 or 70 feet of height! That is not a lot of height, but it is launching a highly visible baseball towing bright yellow line. Much easier to see than the usual monofilament and hard to see small lead sinkers that slingshot launchers usually deploy.

Just to compare that with our Pneumatic Launchers, the other day I tested one of our brand new smaller launchers, the 17 inch long CSV17. It launched a bright colored tennis ball towing 50 pound test line to a height of 130 feet! (They often go even higher, that was a single test).

Thanks for the great story, Duncan! And good luck with your new antennas!! Drop us a line if you ever need to go higher!!!