Buddipole Operation in Melville

I just realised that I’ve haven’t posted since my UK trip in November, 2012, so thought it was time. It’s been a fun couple of weeks for me with excellent conditions on 20 metres with many contacts and a few European QSOs on 10 meters from the car.

I’m currently staying in Melville which is about 5 kilometres from Fremantle. Although it’s not near the water, it’s fairly high and I’ve had some good results from the car in this area in the past. I think it’s a similar elevation to East Fremantle which has always proved a good location. I can’t explain it but I’ve done a few tests with stations that didn’t respond to me in the car from Fremantle who did in East Fremantle. The most recent of which was MW0YVH who gave me a 5/7 report from the top of the hill in the car at East Fremantle. There’s a place a few kilometres away called Wireless Hill where there’s a telecommunications museum, so perhaps that’s a hint.

Generally when operating at night I do it from the relative comfort of my motor vehicle because it’s too fiddly to set up and tune the buddipole in the dark. However, I’m able to stand the buddipole on a balcony of sorts at my current home QTH which gives it some height and I’ve had excellent results with my first two setups. I tried it for the first time here on Saturday, January 12 and last night (January 18) and some of the highlights include the following QSOs:-

Tagged with: amateur radio • buddipole • Buddipole antenna • portable • portable radio session

Filed under: Amateur Radio