[Elecraft] New KX3 up & running.

[lstavenhagen]

Maybe it's more an in-the-eye-of-the-beholder sort of thing then lol. 
My first rule of antennas is "put up what stays up, and stays up every
time". That of course, is my /P influence talking, so the rules are a little
different for me:
- The Buddipole may just look nicely packaged, but in actually it really is
as well built as it looks. Unlike the typical DIY project it really truly
doesn't break on you way out in the mountains in some way you never would
have thought of unless you've built it 50 times already before. It's already
got all that experience behind it and yes I was quite pleasantly surprised
to find that thoughtfulness in it when I first took it out of the bag.
- The Buddipole is NOT small. With the 9' whips, you can deploy a full
length dipole on 15 meters and up. And on 20 it's not that far off from full
length and performs really well.
- if you need REALLY big, a longwire inverted V is a simple matter to DIY
with the "Versatee" and the mast by itself. You could even buy ready-made
counterpoises from BP but I made mine out of 140' or so of speaker wire,
bolts and hot melt glue using existing parts that came with my BP. Works
great on 30M on down with the tuners in my rigs. I think it was an extra $10
to do the whole thing.

So it just depends on what your needs are. I need something that can
withstand throwing around, dropping, and repeated over and over
deployment/takedown without something wearing out or snapping off or locking
up when I'm 20 miles from home 11,000 feet in the mountains. I could have
DIY'ed something that did the same thing but the cost would have come out
the same in the end and I'd have likely made mistakes that BP has already
made and solved. So I just bought it already made from BP.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for DIY; heck I've built 2 K2's already hi hi.
But when something is a quality product, it's a quality product and that's
just the truth about the BP, IMO.

73
LS
W5QD


Lynn W. Taylor, WB6UUT wrote
> The first rule of antennas is "put up the biggest thing you possibly 
> can, and if it stays up, it was too small."
> 
> The Buddipole is SMALL.
> 
> That's why I don't have one.
> 
> The other reason, it seems to me that you're paying a premium for a 
> nicely packaged units.
> 
> I have a 33 foot collapsible kite pole off of eBay, some heavy velcro 
> straps from a big box home improvement store, and some wire.
> 
> The Buddipole may be a good buy, especially for those who don't want to 
> put a kit together, but I think the "best money you'll ever spend" is a 
> little bit over the top.





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