Ahh, so thats why Ive been getting pissed off recently even by national consumer goods box stores! Ive been refusing to click and instead move on. Gotta rethink this, I was thinking it was a way to profile me which is why I refuse to buy from Amazon. Carl
Attached is the flyer they posted on their Yahoo group in May, just prior to Hamvention. It has preliminary pricing, some photos, and a FAQ.
I've put eyes on these products at Ham-Com in Plano, Tx last month. All I can say is WOW!!! Quality appeared to be excellent. The innovative design has had a LOT of thought put into it. The entire mast rotates, regardless of the fact it has guy rings attached. Flawless. As per what antenna you would put on this? Well... I heard a little birdy say that BuddiPole had a new HF antenna in the works... That's all I'm gonna say about that. You can bet your bottom dollar they know what the heck they are doing with timing the release of this mast system as they did.
If you're going to be light duty quick and EZ when it comes to your FD station this "Could" be one way to do it. I like the mast: extending and collapsing the mast in a controlled fashion is simple and easy. Even I could do it in minutes. As far as an efficient radiator with the coil dipole? Thing I don't like... wire tent stakes... They use those because they are small, light, cheap and quick... Trust me here, those will pop RIGHT OUT when they are needed most. Proof: Last weekend at the Threshing Bee's flea market when a very HUGE T-Storm formed up and blew through with zero warning. Both myself and Hubby used every bit of our strength to hold down our wimpy 10x10 $40 Walmart Sun shade and protect all our expensive items... The first thing to leave the site was the 8 in one pull, 8 of those wire tent stakes with the first gust. VERY SMALL screw anchors would install quickly and hold 500-1000 # of pull each... Nothing worse than losing your antennas, tents, Chili Pot and Beer Coolers (water) during a Field Day... or any other event. For an Australian Coast Watcher as designed might have been an almost perfect tool. Hubby says Today they use sat fones. Erika DD
If you want me to review one of those when deployed in the windy wild west of Wales, please do send one across. The result won't be pretty...
Wind is insignificant if the wind load is known, and the guying scheme is engineered to properly handle that load. What's so special about Wales and why are you so sure things will fail? Are the laws of physics different there?
I like it. Have a buddy pole system right now. Very cool antenna and works great. Will most likely buy the taller mast.
I would be interested in the mast/tripod, but not the Buddipole dipole. Instead of their dipole, consider an inverted vee fed with open wire or ladder line. Make it a 1/2 wave on the lowest operating frequency. Band changes? Do it from the tabletop with a tuner inside, or next to, the rig. With some experimentation in feeder length, it's possible to forgo an external tuner and use the rig's internal tuner, assuming it has one. Done this way, it should be possible to find a line length where SWR is within matching range of an internal tuner on all HF bands. Do the work once, then coil up the same line for next time.
Nice video. Here's a link to my review of the 10m (33ft) Mastwerks System - http://blog.wavetalkers.com/reviews/mastwerks/ Overall the Mastwerks System is really solid. The ability to get a near full size 20m dipole a half wave length off the ground and rotate it aloft in a quick and easy portable set up is just awesome. The ability to attach other antenna types to the mast is just a bonus. I've already stared to use mine for EmComm work with the ARES teams in Los Angeles and Ventura by attaching a 2m Arrow Antenna 3 element yagi to the Mast. The 10m mast height gives my antenna a clear view over the houses and the rotator let's me shoot a very narrow gap through the Mountains to between LA and Ventura and hit the county repeater uses by ARES, ACS, and county EMS dispatch. Last week I used the set up in the pictures to operate from a small park in Ventura, CA, and was able to stations coast to coast across the entire US with solid signal reports and got a 10 over 9 report from a station in Barcelona, Spain. 73! W6AH
