We spend most weekends in our 5th wheel. Looking for some kind of HF antenna that is compact when stored. Something that is self supporting or something I could fasten to the ladder on the camper when I need it.

Any ideas or experience with such things.

You might want to look at a Budipole.

It will do 40M -> 6M.

The lower the frequency, the more touchy the tuning gets, because out of the box it is a very short dipole, relying on inductors to tune it.
However, you can buy extra elements to make longer elements. It can also be used as a vertical, which in many circumstances might be preferable.

Generally well made. A bit on the expensive side.

Make a bracket to mount a conventional mobile antenna to the ladder?

I've seen this done with many campers at hamfests over the years.

I've talked to a lot of guys in RV's and they are usually using a collapsible 43ft vertical - MFJ, ZeroFive, etc.

Buddiestick is a good and fast compact option for 40-10M.

Tuning is a little finicky but once you do it a few times it'll go faster.

I've used a Wolf River Coil TIA w/ mega tripod. Works well and packs down pretty small. I use it with radials, but you can use a ground. You could get the Saber version, which mounts to a pole or post.

I've not used many verticals, but I've been happy with mine so far.

TARHEEL II

use it while your driving also

3.5-54mhz perfect SWR

Extreme compromise, as are most loaded verticals to varying degrees.  The shorter and more heavily loaded they are with coils, the worse they will perform in general.  The less loading coil and the more straight element you can get, the better, so something like the Wolf River Coil with a long whip (MFJ-1979) on top and even some rods below the coil to get it up and away from the feed point is about the "best" version of a loaded vertical (and on some higher bands you won't even use any loading).  Other examples are the Super Antenna, the various mobile screwdriver antennas, mono-band "Ham sticks", and ones like your link which is essentially a tappable ham stick.

All of these are loaded ground plane quarter-wave verticals, so they will need ground radials added, even if it's just one as a tuned counterpoise.  I've made my own adjustable coils similar to the WRC design with 3D printing, and they're nice that they can be free standing, but I probably like the simplicity of a wire antenna slingshotted into a tree a little more, provided trees are available.

I like adjustable coils like the wolf river / buddipole / etc or a screwdriver combined with a slingshot wire into a tree clipped to the whip for the lower bands. Using the least amount of loading will get you a more efficient antenna system. Add some retractable radials as well.

None of the screwdrivers can be extended without power though so that's something to consider if you think you might ever want to take it off the RV and put it on a tripod.

If you absolutely need it to be free-standing, that's about as small as they get for HF antennas, but you will be at a huge disadvantage.  Something like the WRC SOTA Special short coil and short whip would be a little better performance wise and still fairly compact when broken down.  For about the same cost, it includes a tripod, three radials, and uses standard 3/8" stub antenna mount hardware so it can be modular with all sorts of other brands and styles of whips, mounts, etc for modification if you want.

Let me expand a bit on why I said Buddipole.

A vertical is easy to set up, and breaks down into a pretty portable package.
However, it is not always easy to find the space for the radials, and without the radials, it is not going to work well at all.
If you are sure you can find a wide open space and lay out radials, that is probably the best way to go.
For multi-band use you are almost certainly going to have to use a short vertical with base loading coils. The shorter it is, the more critical the tuning.

Dipoles are large. Unless you trim them, and compensate by adding inductance (tuning coils).
The shorter you make the dipole, the less efficient it is, and the more sensitive the tuning becomes.
Dipoles need to be well off the ground, otherwise a lot of the energy goes into warming the clouds.
But, this doesn't necessarily mean that you need a tall mast. A shorter mast placed higher up (on a deck, for example) works well.
Similarly on a flat roof, on the edge of a "cliff" (just a sharp-ish) drop-off works), or even in a hotel room 5 floors up (not ideal, but it can work).

The Buddipole deluxe is nice because it has a center mounting device that allows you to mount coils/arms either side to form a dipole.
Or, you can swivel it around and mount one coil and all of the "arms" on top, forming a vertical, and attaching radials to the other side (now the bottom).

The basic deluxe kit works. But as you play with it you will want to spend a bit more money - e.g. a guying kit. You can make your own, but by the time you have finished, you are not likely to save much money over buying one from them. Same with the radials for vertical work. If you want to do much work on 40M you will probably want to buy some extra, longer "arms" to make longer dipoles for better efficiency and easier tuning.

For tuning, I would suggest a NanoVNA. It does make life easier, and is pretty cheap.

This isn't to say that all of the other suggestions here are not good - they are. I am just telling you what *I* think. You (and others) may have quite different ideas.

https://www.buddipole.com/debupa.html

yep

you'll need some 12VDC, the rocker switch, and a bit of wire

pic from ARFCOM'er JC10311 ( cool dude, Silent Key )

https://www.ar15.com/forums/general/Rest-in-peace-JC10311-aka-John-F-Cooney/151-2073126/

Attached File

Look at the Chameleon CHA MPAS LITE.  Then add a CHA JAWMOUNT.  Your mount is either a ground spike or claw mount, then the transformer, then a big whip.  Super easy.  

Probably one of the fastest and easiest setups and teardowns.  I use this for travelling and POTA.  I have had great results with this setup.  Typically I can use 20M and 40M with no tuner.


https://chameleonantenna.com/shop-here/ols/products/mpas-lite

https://chameleonantenna.com/shop-here/ols/products/mpas-lite

Ha-ha! I just bought an AH4 tuner and plan to use it with my travel trailer. The plan is to make a bracket for a 34 ft vertical, telescoping pole, mount the tuner on the bottom. The pole will support an inverted L wire antenna. I'll use the trailer's frame as a counterpoise but will also add several long wires on the ground level. It should work quite well.

OP, if you want something that can be deployed within minutes, get a long Tarheel, screwdriver mobile antenna and mount it on the RV. You'd be surprised with it's performance. Of course it won't be as good as a full size dipole at half "lambda" (or higher) above ground.

Interesting scrap.  If you come up with some shorter pieces that's good stuff for winding baluns and jumpers and such.

Connectors for LMR195 should work. Outer braid dimension is the same as RG58 just that the center conductor is a little larger. The outer jacket is smaller OD as is common for plenum rated cables or other types with high-temperature jackets. The loss isn't particularly lower than low-loss '58 size, but it's high temperature resistant.


I've been meaning to visit that area for a while but haven't made it, was thinking about trying to make it out this summer.

My Buddi-Stick is similar to the Wolf River antenna. It works ok on the upper bands but it's not a miracle antenna by any means. A dipole at 50 ft will dance circles around this antenna. It's a compromise. It packs into a small bag. Antenna analyzer is a must for this antenna, every time it's set or bands changed. I set it on a cheap camera tripod or clamp it to a table or even to my motorcycle handlebars.

It all depends on what you're trying to do.

If it's HF and you just need a PL259 connector you can connect almost anything with a solder type PL259 and a reducer. Just get a smaller reducer and you can drill them out to whatever size you need. I have a length of RG122 that I need to come up with connectors for, if I could find some RG174 size reducers, although I think I found a vendor that has some BNCs that are the right size.  I've put PL259s on LMR300 and even 1/4" heliax by drilling out reducers to fit.

I generally advise against solder PL259s, but in some cases they're the most viable option, and if it's teflon coax you can get away with a lot more in soldering without melting down the cable. Although you really don't want to get to the thermal breakdown temp of teflon and breathe the fumes from that. Solder PLs with reducers are easier anyway since you can pre-tin the parts more readily.

I wish we could like posts.

Some good info here, might try that Wolf River one.

I tried a Yaesu ATAS-25 for a while, I had no success with it. It isn't especially compact either. It did tune really well on the bands it was supposed to work on though. I have pretty much given up on backpackable or suitcase sized verticals. A RV could carry a real vertical though.

Most of my AO is heavily forested so launching a wire into the trees seems to be where it's at for POTA and field days. Most of my SOTA homies are doing a wire too, on a barren rocky summit one's trekking poles screwed together and fully extended seems to be the favored mast these days.

I have a Buddistick that works well.  An antenna analyzer makes it much easier to tune.  Packs up small, and is easy to deploy.

You could also strap a inexpensive push-up pole to your RV ladder, and attach a PackTenna EFHW.  Mine does 20 and 40 amazingly well.