Messing about with Antennas

Yesterday here in Kingston it was a glorious day, with a high of 27C......41C with the humidex, so of course it was the perfect day to go to Lake Ontario Park and play with some antennas.

Several years ago I bought from Buddipole a Rigid Shock-Corded Whip and a Mini Shock-Corded Whip, and I have never used them...they just sat in the corner of the shack.   The issue here is that Buddipole produces no information about how to use these whips, unlike the rest of the products they have.  These two types of whips appear to be orphans.

There seems to be nothing on the Internet about these whips, no ideas for settings or how to set them up, or even how to tune them so they work on various bands.  So, it seems like it was time to experiment with them.

My Rigid Shock-Corded Whip is made up of five 22 inch sections, with a 19 inch adjustable stinger on the top and a 17 inch one on the bottom, giving it a total length of 146 inches.  According to the Buddipole literature, this whip is good for 10m through 17m, and can be used on 20m with the use of two extra 22 inch arms.

After four hours of experimenting with different set-ups here's what I managed to get to work:

On 15m, at 21.150, the SWR was 2.0:1.  The whip was set up with no stingers used, and on an 8 foot mast.  I used a single 10' 9" counterpoise wire running from 8 feet down to 4 feet.

On 17m, at 18.136, the SWR was 1.5:1.  The whip was set up with the top stinger fully extended, but the bottom stinger was not used.  It was also set-up on an 8 foot mast.  I used a single 14' 3" counterpoise wire running from 8 feet down to 4 feet.

On 20m, at 14.145, the SWR was 2.0:1.  The whip was set up with both stingers fully extended and two 22" arms.  It was also set-up on the 8 foot mast.  I used a single 14' 3" counterpoise wire running from 8 feet down to 4 feet.

Even with changing the lengths of the counterpoise wire I could not get below these SWR measurements.

The Mini Shock-Corded Whip on the other hand could not be tuned anywhere.  The version I own is the nine-section version with a 10 inch adjustable stinger on top for a total length of 122 inches.  This whip is going to take a lot more experimenting before I can get it to work.

I'm very surprised that Buddipole does not seem to support these whips the way they support the other antennas they produce.  The documentation they produce for their other antennas is fantastic.