I brought this up in another thread and thought I would take a second and post it here. I have been flying quadcopers since 2014 and started with building a few kits of my own. The first was a 450mm version that was a flame wheel knockoff.

After flying it and a camera around I thought, man this would make a great antenna. Everyone told me it wouldn't work and it would mess with the flight computer. I said what the heck I'm trying it anyway. I waited until night and called a ham buddy I knew had and APRS ht.

The flow went like this

My ts2000 @5w with HT antenna -> drone @300-400 ft with thd72 digipeter -> friends HT about 30miles away

We set our radios off the 144.39 just to be sure we weren't getting digipeted anywhere else. We let them beacon for about 20mins and didn't see each other. As soon as I got the drone half way up my phone started ringing and he got me. That drone didn't have any autopilot so I held it at altitude for about 10min and brought it down.

The connection was as simple as clipping the ht to the frame haha. I want to try it with my 3DR solo and a cross band repeater HT

This is the pre flight weight and balance. the test was conducted at night and I don't have any pictures because I would have crashed.

Attached File

Nice work.  What HT is it?

That's pretty cool. I have an APRS beacon that I've been planning on putting on my hexacopter.  A 70cm ATV transmitter will jam the GPS receiver on the flight controller if you get the antennas too close.

That is super neat..

I'm wondering if I could setup a regular VX-5R to crossband repeat like that...

I don't think it would be a problem. I transmitted on both VHF and UHF without any interference.

With my solo I'm planning on suspending a wouxon cross band HT below it to help with a little isolation.

Well, first I would need a drone

Then I would have to figure out how to get my VX-5R to do crossband... if it can do it at all... (I have no idea if it can)

Have you thought about suspending a roll-up Jpole antenna under it?

Thanks for sharing. This could be a good solution for temporary emergency communications. I wonder if one of the "folding" drones have enough power to lift an HT. Many can be programmed to hover above at a certain altitude, as far as I know.
A Wouxun KG-UV8D has a cross band repeat feature and it's only $109 at BuyTwoWayRadios dot com. I always wanted to try but not sure which drone can do this.

Harlikwin's idea with a roll up "J-pole" (J-Match) antenna may work even better since it can be hung below on a 10 ft piece of RJ-174. The antenna is a lot lighter than the HT and should not introduce as much inertia caused by swinging motion as the HT.

Any idea if there is a relatively inexpensive drone that can do this?

I was actually thinking radio+jpole... though some sort of cardioid antenna might be better. I think 400ft of rg174 would be heavy.

Duh,  This is what I said, a 10 ft piece of GR-174 hanging off the radio attached to a drone. a 10 ft separation may be enough to reduce RF interference to the drone. Some experimentation will be required. It may even work with a rubber ducky attached to the radio.

BTW, I got to thinking more about it. YouTube is your "new friend". Here is a link of a guy lifting a 2lbs load with a Phanton drone. Not bad! I think it may work.

Ah i misunderstood... but yeah that should cut down on rfi.

A corner reflector antenna pointed downward would provide some isolation as well. It could be built from very light material to save weight.

I swear I can remember a story from the 90's that a ham was in trouble in the wilderness. He had a packet capable HT rig of some sort

and used an improvised hot air balloon to send the HT skyward in BBS/Beacon mode. The beacon message was SOS and his location.

He pulled it down after 10 or so minutes and there was "mail" in the BBS mailbox. It read something like..

"We received your SOS and are sending help..."

I can't remember where I read that or if was just a fictional story but a quad copter would do the trick too.

I just strapped two UV5Rs together tonight and sent them up under the Phantom 3P about 200 feet. It worked great.

How long can a drone stay at 400 ft carrying a single dual band Wouxun KG-UV8D (cross-band capable)? Manufacturer's specs say it weighs 490 grams which is a little over one pound. Let's say a cable and antenna weight another 100 grams. That's roughly 600 grams or 1 1/2 lbs, rounded up for max weight variation.

I wonder if there are relatively inexpensive drones on the market that can carry this load. A drone that can hover at several hundred feet above a location and capable to land where it took off? It would be nice to find one of those folding drones than can fit into a backpack.

This could be a great tool for field day or emergency situations.

realistically 10-15 min is about all your going to get without spending a ton of money. HT isnt really the lightest thing to fly with. specialized hardware would be best. I also thought about just flying the j pole antenna up a bit, but not to 400'

now I wish I had bought one of those Xband Wouxon's for $69 from MTC dang...course then I'd need a drone

If you are willing to reduce the height you pilot to there are things you could consider.

If you are going to tether a signal cable to it or build some kind of repeater to go on the drone, save weight by yanking the battery off the drone and goto tethered power from a ground based 12-16volt setup.


If you got a flight controller with a barometer on it you could set it to fly to an altitude and hold the altitude.   From there you could maybe triangulate your two tethers from signal and power to prevent it wandering on you.

It is true, the GPS antennas on these things are super sensitive to noise.   Just my FPV camera about 8 inches away can out out enough noise to throw a GPS out of whack.

KG-UV8D for $69?  Can we still get this price? This is uber cheap.

I always wanted to experiment with a remotely installed x-band radio. Maybe setup a small solar panel with a charge controller with a larger SLA battery.
Maybe one of these days I'll find an inexpensive drone that can lift the HT and hover above my location.

Wow, that guy is going to get lacerated! Those props are no joke and there have been lots of really awful injuries caused by stunts like this.

Consumer drones like the Phantom are designed to be stable as-is without any additional payload. There is usually enough power to get away with lifting more, but that power is intended to be used to compensate for things like wind conditions, operation at higher elevations where the air is thinner (in the mountains, for example), etc. If you operate them close to the maximum weight capacity there is no overhead for unforeseen circumstances.

HobbyKing used to hold multirotor beer lift contests, but these are drones built by hobbyists specifically to lift a heavy weight straight up and hold it for a certain amount of time, not for flying around taking pictures. 

If I were going to hang an antenna from a drone, I'd start with researching the beer lift contests for ideas.