[Update] Portable Ham Radio Setup

I recently added this piece to my portable setup.

It's a drive-on flag pole mount made by Boone Outdoor Hardware. Originally it's designed for mounting a flag pole and displaying your favorite sports team's flag while tailgating. It was $25 from the fine folks at etrailer.com. They also make a flag pole to go with it.

FYI etrailer.com has exceptional service, they carry lots of stuff that I've considered for another hobby of mine, boating.

Anyway, like any good radio ham, I found an alternative use for it.

My idea is that on a road trip or any other outing, there may not be an easy to access place to set up my painter's pole to for raising my Buddipole antenna.

With this piece I would just find a good spot to park the car, put the mount near the tire, run over it, pop the pole in the mount and assemble the antenna.

The pole seems to be held solidly in the mount. it has a set screw to hold it tight. I would keep a close eye on it in any kind of wind. However it is designed to hold a much taller mast than my painter's pole. Something to consider is using the foam bumper it comes with so it doesn't damage your car.

Another consideration is the Buddipole is documented as having a sensitivity to nearby metal objects ie. a vehicle. I haven't tested it in the field yet to see what effects if any this will have on the antenna.

I plan to test this setup soon and will report back what I find.

Youtube Link: Drive-On Antenna Mount

I also picked up this sweet folding hand cart for trucking all my crap around. It works well and folds up nice and compact.

It only cost me $25 bucks from Amazon.

[Update] Buddipole High SWR on 10 Meter Band

Update: Well I think I put together why my SWR was so high on 10.

The BNC not being cranked down was the first issue. The second issue was likely a result of a bad banana plug. I'll explain...

So last night I was screwin around with my antenna (no euphemism there). I saw there was a 6m opening and wanted to see if I could hear anything.  Whilst connecting it up the red side banana plug broke off in the binding post! I wasn't applying extreme pressure or anything, I think it's a manufacturer defect. A close inspection reveals scorch marks and what could be a cold solder joint.

Broken banana plug on the right

I corresponded with Chris from Buddipole about my issue. He responded quickly and said that this is a rare situation and he is sending me a fix. Very good support at Buddipole.

I think that mystery is solved.

I poked around the Buddipole User Group and found that people are able to work 10m without a tuner. So this must be the issue.

I'm replaced the banana plugs with ring connectors and nuts on the binding posts. I'm sure the folks at Buddipole will cringe if they ever see this. It just seems to me the banana plugs they use are way too small and fragile to last, especially when hanging coax from them. Even with strain relief they feel like they are too stressed to be reliable. So even if they sent me a new cable, I would fear the same thing would just happen again. Soldered ring connectors will never brake and the connection is way more solid than banana plugs. I've read other  people have done the same thing. It's easy and I already have all the parts.

Lock-nuts and ring terminals

I'll give it a go and report back what I find.

Portable Ham Radio Setup

Here is a description of my current portable ham radio setup.

Living in a city has it's conveniences, sometimes that means making sacrifices. One sacrifice I am making is not having a permanent antenna setup. Going portable gets me out of the apartment and adds a little challenge to the hobby.

I have a ways to go in making it more portable and easier to pack up. Like every good setup it is evolving into something more efficient.

My setup includes the following gear:

Yaesu FT-450AT 100 watt Transceiver

Buddipole Mini Portable HF Antenna

6ft - 12ft Painter's Pole Antenna Mast

Deep Cycle Marine Battery (106ah)

Paper Logbook

Various Accessories (bungie cords, guy lines, cables etc...)

Here is a YouTube video I made of the portable setup:
Youtube: Portable Ham Radio Setup

My results with this setup were decent. I took it a nearby park to give it a test. The park I went to isn't my first choice for radio work just because of it's low elevation. It's basically a low creek bed surrounded by hills and trees. However it's close to my place and served it's purpose.

I found a parking spot with a picnic table nearby, this was perfect so I wouldn't have to lug my giant battery far. I bungied the painter's pole to the table leg and assembled the antenna. I followed the instructions that it came with setting it up for the 10 meter band as a center fed dipole. It was a little chilly and windy so I ran the coax back to the car and operated out of the front seat of the car.

The FT-450AT has a built-in auto tuner, I wasn't able to use this feature. I'm not sure what the problem was, but when I would try to engage the tuner it would error out presumably because of high SWR. When I would try to transmit even low power without the tuner engage, the SWR would go through the roof. I made some adjustments to the antenna, lengthening and shortening the whips slightly, and moving the coil clips, but nothing seemed to work. With the tuner engaged, but not running the auto tune function, the SWR was fairly low. I saw 1.1:1 - 1.3:1 using 100 watts. I dropped the radio down to  12 and 15 meter just to test the tuner. Putting the antenna back to the manual suggested configuration, I ran the auto tuner and it worked.

That tells me the antenna is capable of 10 meter, but it's not really the most efficient on that band. I still have some experimenting to do to get it to work on 10 meters efficiently. I need an analyzer to really set it up properly, but it's not 100% necessary. I would be curious to see someone use an antenna analyzer on the Buddipole in the 10 meter band.

The antenna seems to be very dependent on it's surroundings. Meaning antenna height, nearby objects, band conditions, and power output all need to be taken into consideration when setting it up. I think you can definitely get in the ball park by following the manual, but if you want to get all the "steam into the beam" you need to experiment a little.

The 10 meter band condition were favorable and I made my first HF contact with this set up. From Maryland to Colorado. Not too shabby for the first time out. I heard lots of Colorado stations coming in strong.

I'll continue posting updates to my set up and what results I get until as I learn more about the Buddipole and how to set it up more efficiently. So far I really like the antenna It's made well and allows me to be portable on several different bands with one antenna package.

Here are a couple of links to the equipment I'm using:

Yaesu FT-450 (mine is the 450AT which was replaced by the 450D)

Mini Buddipole