First time out with the Buddistick.
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Despite the predictions for a damp miserable Saturday, the sun was shining so I decided it was time to get out with the Buddistick to see how it performed. I’d read many reports about setting up the various Buddipole antennas - most of which suggested it was pretty straightforward but some of which suggested it could be a bit fiddly. With that in mind I’d conducted a brief indoor test to see how easily the coil tap and counterpoise length combinations for 17m and 20m could be arrived at. This had shown that a nice low SWR could be achieved within a few minutes for each of these bands - so far so good and it seemed pretty straighforward but how would it perform ‘in the field’? |
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Buddistick /P |
With limited time available I didn’t want to travel too far from home so I headed north out of Lichfield, climbing to high ground with a good take-off in pretty much all directions. It was here that I setup the Buddistick for an on-air test at a spot just off the A515 close to the intersection with the A51, in locator square IO92BQ. The picture shows the spot pretty well and also shows just how wrong the forecasters were - rain indeed!
I chose 17m as the band to try first because it tends to be less crowded than 20m. I had a coil tap in place for the band so it was just a matter of stringing out the counterpoise wire for low SWR and off we go. Or so I thought. I soon learned that there is a significant difference between deploying the counterpoise indoors on the top floor of a house (i.e. relatively far from the ground) versus deploying within a few feet of terra firma. Indoors was easy - outdoors took a little longer. Note to self - devise a simple kite winder support to allow more precise counterpoise deployment rather than relying on surrounding bushes!
Despite the differences between indoor & outdoor setup I was soon tuning around 17m and I have to say that the antenna seems pretty lively on receive. The band was alive with Asian stations (this around 14:00 UTC) - China, Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong and India were all heard 55 or better. I put out a few calls but all of these stations were running significant pile-ups so I wasn’t able to make a QSO but Rafi (4X4FR) who always has a great signal gave me a 58 report from Tel Aviv which was encouraging (I was running 50w SSB).
Turning to 20m (which was very busy on this afternoon) and a quick change to the setup, with the same observations re indoor/outdoor and ground effect, I again found the Buddistick to be very lively on receive. On transmit I got a 53 report from Rocco (VE3YJ) near Toronto and a 59 report from CS0RCL/P - these were 59+ and 56 respectively with me.
These brief tests were conducted with the Buddistick antenna mounted on top of a camera tripod with the feed point about 4ft above the ground and the counterpoise wire running away horizontally averaging 2-3ft elevation over adjacent bushes. Encouraging results for the first time out I think and I am certainly looking forward to using the antenna a lot more over the summer.
You can view the pictures of this antenna and other portable operations on the Portable Amateur Radio gallery page.