Quote:
Originally Posted by Manual Garcia O'Kely
Did not notice about the question.
I like the Buddipole. It's not a full-sized dipole, but it can be deployed anywhere in about 10 minutes with or w/out trees or anything else around.
I have made a number of contacts, but had mostly been using 20 watts - I've just upgraded to an FT-897D, so more to follow.
Only knock on the BP? It's pricy. I'm not saying it's not a good product - it's really well engineered and thought out, and everything fits really nicely together. But the complete package is expensive and to add 80 meters is another couple hundred bucks. I sunk the money because I like the jump bag design and quick setup no matter where.
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I also have the Buddipole so was curious how you liked yours, I agree it is pricy but very well made. I had a lot of problems at first with it, I used it first time on field day last summer. I setup according to the chart and my SWR was bad I trimmed it until I got what the meter said was a good SWR but no one could hear me. The whole day was a disaster had so many problems. This is way you should test everything before field day.
The next camping trip I brought my new MFJ269 antenna analyzer and found out that I was getting too much RF coming back down the coax. I tried some clip on RF chokes but still had the problem I then coiled half the coax and vola the RF was gone and now the antenna tuned per the chart and now people were hearing me.
While at the Pacificon Hamfest I bought the long whips and find it works much better with these whips. I also get more band width. When I get time I want to set it up and get a reading with a field strength meter then set it up with the whips no coils and us my antenna tuner (AH4) and see what the differance in readings would be. I would like to be able to change bands without changing coil taps.