Foundations Of Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio One of the recurring topics in on-air discussion is that of antennas and if we were to graph the topics of conversations, antennas would be the clear winner in any line-up. As a beginning Amateur this phenomenon bamboozled me for a very long time. Why are these people talking about antennas all the time and what's there to know that you can't say in 30 seconds? From the mouths of babes... I've mentioned in the past that Amateur Radio is to a very large degree magic. Another way of expressing that is to say that there is an Art to being an Amateur and antennas play a big part. A friend of mine loaned me his antenna kit called a Buddipole. It's a portable set-up that is akin to Meccano or Lego in that you can build up an antenna from parts and make a large range of antennas from the same basic parts, two coils, a feed point, a balun, two telescopic whips and some extension pieces. For me this particular antenna has been temperamental and I couldn't get my head around how to ma