In January of 2000, five years ago, as I write this, I 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, but successful contacts have been made all the way down to 160 Meters in the past few months.

Over 130 DXCC Entities have been worked, and I had a great day early in January, 2001, when all the continents in the world (except Antarctica) were worked with 50 watts and my hand-held antenna in one day with one battery charge. Super conditions on the 12 and 15 Meter bands. In June of 2000, I traveled to the Baltic States and worked over 55 countries in two weeks from Riga, Latvia, and Vilnius, Lithuania. Worked All States came early last year.  And then in the Fall of 2004, with half the Buddipole vertically mounted on a mountain bike,  all the continents were worked in one 24 hour period, again with 50 watts and one battery charge.

The radio of choice here has gone from my trusty TS-50 to a Yaesu FT-857ND.  And I have added an automatic tuner, a Z-100 Ultra, to the backpack.  The batteries at the first of 2005 are high capacity C-Cells, NIMH's.   4500 MAH at 12 volts.  Outstanding lightweight batteries I purchased through Batteryspace.com.   Wires are protected and fused, and all connections are very secure. The power cord comes out of the backpack for easy charging. An automatic charger at home ‘floats’ the battery after the voltage comes up to where I like it. 

I’ve settled on one antenna, but it's a very flexible one.   It’s a five band HF portable antenna that I describe in another part of my web site. Pictures and a description of how to make one is there for anybody interested. If you have a Radio Shack store and a home improvement store or an ACE Hardware where you can shop, you can get all the parts needed to construct this very small and reasonably efficient dipole. It breaks down to a 21" package, and it, and the whole station, including the battery, will fit easily into a suitcase  for the airlines. Weight of the antenna and coax is less than 2 pounds.  

The mast is important. I have several, but in order to get the radiation up high over above my head, I use a telescoping aluminum handle that is used for roller-painting ceilings. It is 6 feet long, and it goes up to 12’. I run it at about 11 feet above the ground. It weighs 1.5 pounds.

Consider also, running half of this homebrew antenna vertically on a mount of your choice.   Clamp it on a picnic table, the handlebars of a bike, or on your backpack.    Choose an appropriate radial, and you are in business for working folks anywhere and at any time, depending on band conditions.

My son, W6HFP, Chris, suggested we go commercial with the Buddipole, and we did that back in 2002, in July.   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.

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1/1/2005