Here you are a recent picture of one of my laster Buddipole experiences ! Well, I’ve played with this antenna one month, and overall impressions, is really positive. I’ve been able to compare this antenna to my old 3 bands dipole antenna.
First of all, one of the main reason I’ve bought this antenna is the “portability”, even if I’ve choosen the deluxe edition that includes the tripod.
Since my current antenna restrictions does not permit me to have a real antenna on the roof, the portable operations are my current only way to be active on ham radio bands.. (except few sporadic digital activities from home, using this antenna on the balcony).

Well, about gain, you cannot ask much to a portable antenna, what I can tell you is that signal reports received compared to the dipole, 7 meters above the ground, were really comparable in 15-17-20 meters.

Tuning this antenna is very easy in all bands till 20 meters, for lower bands, gain and tuning is really problematic. In 40 meters in example, I’ve never been able to go lower than 3:1 swr. I know that on lower bands is recommended very free space, and some particular procedurres, but really have not had much time to investigate yet on this.

I’ve noticed also that SWR change with the rotation of the dipole, and with the height of the mast. It often increase.

Manufacture of the antenna is good, also accessories, are well done. I’ve just experienced a problem with a pole connector, since the very first day, I will keep in touch with Bud to have some info. The Bag is usefull to carry on everything including the tripod, thta is the biggest thing inside. All the antenna bag, once full, is not heavy at all.

As backup antenna and for excercise I will try to build a home made buddipole antenna, with pvc tubes, maybe a dedicated version for 30 meters band, for my PSK31 nights from the apartment. More info to come.

Somebuddipole antenna related links can be found here, including a modified version that use wires instead of whips.

[tags] hamradio, antenna, ham radio, dx, amateur radio[/tags]

Was just having fun watching YouTube , and discovered some ham radio related videos like this one. EA3AJW operate ED3SSB contest station during WPX contest 2006.
Broadband and digital camcoders make this possible today ! [tags]hamradio,ham radio,contest,video,dxing,amateur radio[/tags]

During last years, waiting to obtain my licence I’ve spent a lot of my “radio-times” listening to broadcast stations and also trying to intercept unknown and strange signals. Monitoring “extra” bands for unknown signals, still give me that taste of misterious that fascinated me so much in past years.

Although in italy the “utility station listening” was not so popular, I’ve been in touch with some friends that were interested in this kind of excercise, expecially, aeronautical and marine listenings.

I do remember that one of the hardest information to obtain were frequency lists of course, and during the early 90’s, some photocopied tables with undeciphrable words and numbers were circulating among shortwave listeners.

Starting in the mid 90’s and the diffusion of the internet those informations become easier to find and more readable.
Today many sources are availbale for scanner enthusiasts, and frequencies are at public domain.
Here you can find some usefull resources.

• Radio Scanning links
• Monitoring Times
• Radio Scanner at wikipedia

I’ve also fond copied of articles originally hosted ad the WUN club, went QRT during this year, that are a bit old but still very interesting.

• Digital signals FAQ

• Government and Military Frequency Lists
• Marine Broadcasts
• Maritime band plan HF
• US Coast Guard Aircraft

  Many more info from old WUN club site, could be retrieved at the wayback machine
  [tags] hamradio, scanning, radio scanning, maritime, shortwave, amateur radio, vhf, ham radio[/tags]