I was in a book store reading a stupid magazine that taked about small inventors and there was a guy that made a windmill that used 30" blades but there were a lot of them on a string. It used a weather ballon to hold ot up and it just rotated with the wind made as much power as a giant jetplane blade sized windmill. Anyone else read this and can find it again for me?

This may not be the exact one you were looking at but one I've read over quite a bit.
Multi-Rotor Windmill

That is close and helps me. Thanks a lot.

This is very cool. I am interested in trying to make a homeade version of this and hopefully get some solar panels too. I need to research what type of electric motors will work as generators. Are you planning to experiment with wind maddassher?

There's a good site Here on DIY windmill building. There's lots of free advice from people that do this extensivly.

The biggest cost with windmills is building the tower to get to the wind. In some areas with plenty of wind this is not a problem. Good planing with regards to location goes a long ways. I didn't plan very well and was dissapointed with my little Air-X but don't let me discourage anyone from building their own,maybe build a small version before investing a lot of time in a full scale model.

If a large tower is needed it becomes preety much equal with solar in terms of cost per watt but if the wind is there then a mix of solar/wind is more flexable in terms of reliable energy capture.

good luck with the projects

I think the specific article you are talking about was the one in Popular Science in May.

I actually found the article and it was orig in PS. I sent the guy an email and he called me back and we talked for about 20 minutes. I wanted to set it up at the local auto auction. But I am apparently not that good of a saleman.

On a similar topic I was driving in Miami today (this is a bad thing) and you could see all of the condo's and office buildings hudreds of them 200 feet in the air atleast. I was thinking that thay should all have a few windmills mounted on the top of them the hardest part is putting up the pole. Except that tradition blade windmills would not work they would have to be the upsidedown egg beater type of the Jet engine looking ones. Of course they would never pass hurricane code and old ladies would complain. Probably power the whole city. If you have ever been to the beach it is usually breezy. But 200 feet in the air it is really blowing. 20 miles inland you get almost nothing.