Tuesday, July 13, 2010

When disaster strikes

it is best to be prepared. Disaster struck, I was not; and I have learned from it.

I brought the Buddistick out with me to do some outdoor QRPing, only to discover that I forgot to bring my painter's pole mast with me. So I decided to make due by setting the Buddidtick on the small tripod on top of the car. You guessed it ..... it fell over, snapping the whip in two.

I have placed an order with Budd for TWO new 10 foot replacement whips. One to use and one as a back up. I also ordered two more 11 inch antenna arm segments which will allow me to put a total of 44 inches worth of antenna arm segments, the coil and then the 10 foot whip as the normal set up.

I am contemplating acquiring the standard Buddipole mast. Totally extended, it would actually be a couple of feet shorter than my painter's pole; but it collapses down to 22 inches, making it much easier to carry around.

72 de Larry W2LJ

3 comments:

  1. Congrats on joining the broken whip club, I joined it 2 years ago when some cattle at the field day site decided to stampede and trip on the feed line and snap a 3 element 6 meter yagi.

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  2. Sorry to learn of your Buddi problem. I will also be purchasing a number of arm segments and a couple of 10-foot backups. The arm extension will serve me well as they fit in my suitcase and transport well. My MP-1 may find itself on the end of those arm extensions, at least temporarily. I expect to use a full-size photo tripod as base. 73 es GL

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  3. Anonymous1:40 AM

    So far, so good on not joining the broken whip club, knock knock.

    I have the Mini-Buddipole and with the long whips and 2 extra 22 inch arms I can do the full sized 20m vertical with no coil (pic of it on my QRZ page). And with that you can do full size on down wavelength wise. And more radiator helps with the low bands too. So if it helped you get extra arms in the end you'll probably consider it a good experience.

    Jason - N6WBL

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