Thanks Rich,
When the line breaks, the weight will travel quite some distance. I
recall trying to get on the air when living in an apartment in the
early 1970's. It had to be a stealthy job requiring small gauge wire
and sneaking around before sunrise to avoid detection by snoopy
neighbors. I didn't have fishing weights so I tied a bunch of
hardware nuts to the line, sighted the perfect tree limb and
launched. The shot was perfect - except the line broke. The hardware
rained down on 3-4 houses down range making a huge racket. I
retreated inside behind the curtains and watched least one neighbor
emerge in his bathrobe to investigate. Stupid thing to do, but we
were young back then and often neglected the consequence of our actions.
Oh, and I never did put the antenna up in that particular tree, but
struck a great deal with the landlord behind the apartments. It was
perfect with two tall trees in just the right place. The only problem
were two big dogs guarding the large shop rented by some rough
looking characters who "bought" old cars and parted them out. Neither
the dogs or the car guys liked my being there - they insisted I
contact them before venturing into the lot. I eventually got the
antenna installed (with slingshot and fishing weights) and all was
well. A few days later a couple of policeman knocked my door
inquiring about my relationship with the car guys out back - the
policeman had seen me erecting the antenna on the rented lot. Seems
the cops had a stakeout in the apartment next door watching all the
cars arrive during the weekend and parts leaving randomly throughout
the week. A few days later, the police raided the place, arresting 10
bad guys, several stolen cars, a cache of semiautomatic weapons and
drugs. I'm glad I didn't try to do my stealthy work out there!
Dennis, K7FL
Battle Ground, WA
==
At 12:57 PM 12/24/2008, Richard Hill wrote:
>I used a slingshot and lead weights until someone told me they always got
>stuck in the tree <grin>. I need to put a line in a redwood every so often,
>and the slingshot only works when it is dry and dusty. I use a bowhunting
>"Game Tracker" 17 pound line. It works well, but the sling shot needs 1
>ounce or lighter weights.
>(For reference: http://www.archerysportsusa.com/store/index.cfm/c58/i844 no
>connection, just pulled the link off the web).
>
>I started off tossing a 2 ounce fishing weight with a fishing rod, and found
>that worked well, but I was concerned about having the heavy sinker escape
>and disturb the neighbors.
>
>I've ordered a tennis ball launcher, and I think that is a good tool, but
>I've finally realized that I could toss the tennis ball with a surf casting
>rod, and that also works very well. My redwood needs about 3 ounces (33
>pennies) in the tennis ball to easily slide through the branches when wet. I
>use 40 # stiff monofilament, because that is what is on the rod.
>
>Rich
>NU6T
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Dennis Ashworth [mailto:k7fl@arrl.net]
>Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 10:56 AM
>To: towertalk
>Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] lines into trees
>
>I wrote an article for "Hinks & Kinks" some years about using a
>slingshot and fishing line/weights for launching lines into trees. It
>may still be in the ARRL Handbook - it was for many years. There are
>now several commercial products for this purpose on the market so I
>won't repeat the details here. But I will add one thing. My
>experience with shooting fishing sinkers is that the weight will
>often loop over tree limbs. When this occurs your only recourse is to
>break the line and try again. The problem is the line usually breaks
>at some random point along the line often leaving unsightly
>monofilament line dangling from the tree.To avoid this and retrieve
>the line (and frequently the sinker) one should use a few feet of
>lighter weight leader between the weight and the main line. This
>ensures the line will break near the sinker ... almost without
>exception the sinker will drop as will the main line.
>
>I use 25# monofilament, 8-12# leader and 2 oz sinker.
>
>Have fun - I've used a slingshot for many years with 100 foot fir
>trees with excellent success.
>
>Dennis, K7FL
>Battle Ground, WA
>
>==
>
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