Chris:

As you may or may not know, several of us on this list have been
experimenting with a modular portable antenna system called the Buddipole.
It's made by a guy named Bud Drummund (w3ff) out in California.

Although I haven't had nearly the time I would like to experiment with this
antenna system, I got one as a Christmas present last year, and have had
several successful operations with it.  The instructions that come with the
antenna system are made for sighted individuals, but with a little
innovation and help from the manufacturer, I have had some success in
configuring the coils and taps to get it to work.

The antenna system itself is somewhat pricy (around $300(), but it may be
well worth it if space or available help is preventing you from getting on
the air.

The Buddipole covers 40 through 10 meters on HF, and 6 and 2 meters on VHF.

Check out the Buddipole web site for more:

http://www.buddipole.com

Best 73 from Tom Behler: KB8TYJ

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Moore" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 1:42 PM
Subject: portable hf antennas


> Greetings,
> Recently on this list there has been some talk extolling the merits of
> verious antenna such as butternub hf9v, g5rv and someothers. I'd like to
> approach the topic from the premise that hams ain't getting any younger,
> and finding help to erect towers and wire antennas will become even a
> greater challenge over time.
>
> With this in mind I starting looking at the product reviews on eham.net
> under the antennas/hf/portable category.  I was first amazed at the number
> of portable antennas.  I was further impressed with some of the favorable
> opinions on some of the products.
>
> We've had good discussions of accessible hf rigs, but what about antennas?
> Let's start with the hypothetical question of how you would get on the air
> if you didn't have either the pysical space or the man power to erect
> typical full-sized antennas or towers.  Let see if we can come up with
some
> options from either the eham.net listing or other ideas which you could
> offer.
>
> 73 Chris w1gm
>