How long would you last?

[Lightspeed]

Generally if hoisting a tall vertical antenna, it would be a 1/2 wave in length. This is the lightest configuration to lift and does not require ground radials to function...handy when the lifting device is in capable of less than perfect VTOL.

The snag with 1/2 waves is that they always have VERY high voltages at their ends. Not good for the lifting drone, and even if the connection between the wire and drone were say insulating monofilament line, I've seen such lines vaporized many times by seemingly low powered transmissions.

When you say wifi I assume you mean a range extender or repeater as I cannot imagine how heavy data cabling would be to connect a hub to a port.

And yes both Wifi and Mobile phones are using Radio Frequency.

Maybe the control of the experimental drones was by IR, like on those little radio controlled helicopters???