{"id":14418,"date":"2020-07-03T23:07:30","date_gmt":"2020-07-03T21:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/?p=14418"},"modified":"2020-07-03T23:07:30","modified_gmt":"2020-07-03T21:07:30","slug":"sky-anchor-puts-radios-up-high-no-tower-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/2020\/07\/03\/sky-anchor-puts-radios-up-high-no-tower-needed\/","title":{"rendered":"Sky Anchor Puts Radios Up High, No Tower Needed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When it comes to radio communications on the VHF bands and above, there&#8217;s no substitute for elevation. The higher you get your antenna, the farther your signal will get out. That&#8217;s why mountaintops are crowded with everything from public service radios to amateur repeaters, and it&#8217;s the reason behind the &#8220;big stick&#8221; antennas for TV and radio stations.<\/p>\n<p>But getting space on a hilltop site is often difficult, and putting up a tower is always expensive. Those are the problems that <a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.io\/project\/173201-sky-anchor-drone-wifi-and-sdr-unlimited-flight\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the Sky Anchor, an antenna-carrying drone<\/a>, aims to address. The project by [Josh Starnes] goes beyond what a typical drone can do. Rather than relying on GPS for station keeping, [Josh] plans a down-looking camera so that machine vision can keep the drone locked over its launch site. To achieve unlimited flight time, he&#8217;s planning to supply power over a tether. He predicts a 100&#8242; to 200&#8242; (30 m to 60 m) working range with a heavy-lift octocopter. A fiberoptic line will join the bundle and allow a MIMO access point to be taken aloft, to provide wide-area Internet access. Radio payloads could be anything from SDR-based transceivers to amateur repeaters; if the station-keeping is good enough, microwave links could even be feasible.<\/p>\n<p>Sky Anchor sounds like a great idea that could have applications in disaster relief and humanitarian aid situations. We&#8217;re looking forward to seeing how [Josh] develops it. In the meantime, what&#8217;s your world-changing idea? If you&#8217;ve got one, we&#8217;d love to see it entered in <a href=\"https:\/\/prize.supplyframe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the 2020 Hackaday Prize<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"formula-bar\" class=\"\">\n<div id=\"t-formula-bar-input-container\">\n<div dir=\"ltr\">\n<div id=\"t-formula-bar-input\" spellcheck=\"false\">\n<div class=\"cell-input\" dir=\"ltr\" tabindex=\"0\" role=\"textbox\" contenteditable=\"true\">\n<div id=\"sidebar-mobile-1\" class=\"widget_text widget widget_custom_html amr_widget\">\n<div class=\"textwidget custom-html-widget\">\n<div style=\"text-align: center; font-size: 24px; font-weight: 300; margin-top: 12px;\">\n\tThe <a href=\"https:\/\/prize.supplyframe.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span\n\t\t\tstyle=\"font-weight: bold;\">Hackaday<\/span>Prize2020<\/a> is Sponsored by:\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"prize-footer-2020\">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/supplyframe.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><br \/>\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Hackaday-prize2020-sponsors-supplyframe\" data-src=\"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/hackaday-prize2020-sponsors-supplyframe.png\"\n\t\t\talt=\"Supplyframe\" style=\"width:auto; height:100%;\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><br \/>\n\t<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"prize-footer-2020\">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.digikey.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><br \/>\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Hackaday-prize2020-sponsors-digi-key\" data-src=\"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/hackaday-prize2020-sponsors-digi-key.png\"\n\t\t\talt=\"Digi-Key\" style=\"width:auto; height:100%;\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><br \/>\n\t<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"prize-footer-2020\">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.microchip.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><br \/>\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Hackaday-prize2020-sponsors-microchip\" data-src=\"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/hackaday-prize2020-sponsors-microchip.png\"\n\t\t\talt=\"Microchip\" style=\"width:auto; height:100%;\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><br \/>\n\t<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"prize-footer-2020\">\n\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.arm.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><br \/>\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" title=\"Hackaday-prize2020-sponsors-arm\" data-src=\"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/hackaday-prize2020-sponsors-arm.png\"\n\t\t\talt=\"Arm\" style=\"width:auto; height:100%;\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><br \/>\n\t<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"clear: both;\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>source <a href=\"https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2020\/07\/03\/sky-anchor-puts-radios-up-high-no-tower-needed\/\">https:\/\/hackaday.com\/2020\/07\/03\/sky-anchor-puts-radios-up-high-no-tower-needed\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When it comes to radio communications on the VHF bands and above, there&#8217;s no substitute for elevation. The higher you get your antenna, the farther your signal will get out. That&#8217;s why mountaintops are crowded with everything from public service<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/2020\/07\/03\/sky-anchor-puts-radios-up-high-no-tower-needed\/\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Sky Anchor Puts Radios Up High, No Tower Needed<\/span><span class=\"meta-nav\"> &#8250;<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14423,"href":"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14418\/revisions\/14423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cornay.co.za\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}