Open Sky Anchor WiFi Drone Brings The GIG

On April 12 2020, several tornadoes ripped through our community in East Brainerd, Chattanooga, TN.  Wind speeds above 145 mph and EF-3 tornado classification. The closest tornado missed my home by just half a mile, but I watched it go by. Power and internet were out for days and over 60 miles of fiber optic and power lines were twisted like yarn and toothpicks. I am fortunate to have very high speed internet available at 1 gbps.  The fiber optic lines are back up, but now that Covid-19 has taken such a strong hold, physical school buildings are limited in space and students are at home. Many families cut their internet and cable services after the disaster to save money. Displaced residents specifically are staying in hotels, Air B&B, camp grounds and temporary apartment solutions setup by home insurance companies. Many of these places have poor or no internet, and it is not just as simple as installing internet in a place they do not permanently stay ( think campgrounds and cheap hotels ). The city of Chattanooga and EPB Fiber Optics providers are working to do everything they can to get internet to every eligible family for aid, but ultimately there are lots of kids and adult students that cannot get good enough internet in their individual situations to do schoolwork. I would love to offer connections to groups of students in range to do my part to fill our WiFi desert.

So I just now ordered three servos. I have a few on hand but they are all some kind of metal gear HD servo that is way overkill for the purpose. I looked up the lightest standard sized servo and came back with the Futuba S3004 at less than 1.3 oz.  At this rate the servos will weight less than the two antennas themselves. I ordered them tonight and they will arrive Friday. It feels like forever away but I do still need to wire up power, and get the first flight before I can build and attach the tether properly. So I suppose it is not as far away as you would think in that case.

ok here is 300 foot of 14 gauge aluminum wire on the spool I picked up from amazon. It has a crank to real in the cable after landing. I am tempted to go ahead and get the next 100 foot on the roll. I will need to add connectors and solder them together. They will be insulated with shrink tubing. I have a label maker and I consider labeling the tether every 10 foot or something as a visual indicator to see how much of the tether is in the sky. 

parts for the tether build are arriving, 3 100 foot spools of 14 gauge wire with silicon insulation and the step up transformer from 110v to 220v ac to combat voltage drop over long lengths of wire, reduce amp draw through the wire as well as make sure the power supplies operate at their peak output and efficiency. At 220v it is much easier for a power supply to do its job than 110v. Higher input voltages increase the overall efficiency of input / output ratio and minimizing loss to resistance and heat.

I may get another roll of power wire as it would really be a nice treat to be able to make ti all the way to 400 foot legal ceiling for flight.

I added 40mm fans to the 40mm heatsinks cooling the switching regulators. I want to make sure I do whatever I can to make sure the power supplies can handle their full capacity if needed.