God Bless Buddipole Antennas 20 Years + of Antenna Bliss!
THE W3FF HOMEBREW BUDDIPOLE
A PORTABLE ANTENNA DESIGN FOR AMATEUR RADIO
History of the Buddipole
In January of 2000, Budd W3FF began experimenting with a “walking portable” ham station. Since
then, thousands of stations have been worked on the amateur radio bands, mostly from
10 Meters through 60 Meters.
The radio of choice here is a Yaesu FT-857ND. The new Lithium Ion Nano-phosphate
batteries, the A-123’s are the way to go for power. A two pound A-123 gives me two
hours of SSB operating with 100 watts and the ‘857d. (A-123’s and chargers are under
accessories at Buddipole.com.)
Instructions are on this website for two homebrew HF antennas that are easy to build
and very effective…………the Buddipole and the Buddistick, a vertical antenna that uses
PVC with a variety of whip options.
The mast is important. I have several, but in order to get the feedpoint up high, I use
either a Buddipole commercial mast ( Buddipole.com ) or a painter’s pole with a Center
Tee Adapter. That adapter changes the odd Acme thread to a half inch pipe thread.
That’s the thread used on the homebrew and commercial antennas I will describe.
My son, Chris W6HFP, suggested we go commercial with the Buddipole, and we did that
back in July 2002. You can see the commercial products at Buddipole.com. Chris now
runs the company, and I do the technical support and help the homebrewers with any
questions.
So somehow I have the original Buddipole back to 2003 to the latest BuddiHex and bits and bobs in between (TRSB is a must) along with several masts and a Mastwerks. Do I have 5 zip cases of various Buddipole antennas and tripods? Yes Sir! Total Fan Boy maniac OCD
Heard them…worked them…logged them…
I have made several thousand contacts from 80 to 2m and have always been happy with the excellenet workmanship and proof of concepts actually prototyped for some time before release to market.
I am at the Booth on Friday 9am at Hamvention
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pdf available upon request I am Good in QRZ.com