Many thanks to Keith (GW4OKT) who shares the following guest post:

Cheap & Cheerful Telescopic SPOTA Antenna

Available on eBay for around £45, this 5m whip with a ground spike and counterpoise/radial.

Sold as a QRP antenna, yet in the specs, quote it as ‘able to withstand 300W’, I think I will stay at 5-10W to be honest!

Well, I used it on two POTA activations on the 11th of November, coupled to my KX2 and internal ATU. You can obviously adjust the whip for best match, but I was lazy and left it at full height.

Most QSOs where on 20m and 17m. The seller quotes that it will tune 20m to 10m and I found this to be correct. It will also ‘tune’ on 30/40m, but don’t expect decent performance.

This is truly a cheap compromise antenna, but I was surprised how reasonable the build quality was! As you can see, it doesn’t take up much space, the aluminium ground spike is 10” long including the threaded portion.

The closed up whip is 20.25 “ including the threaded portion.

The ribbon counterpoise is also 5m long and is terminated with an eyelet that attaches to the ground spike threads. I did consider splitting the ribbon to make a fan pattern, but thought it would be pretty messy to deploy an store, I kept it simple and still achieved good results!

This is a handy standby antenna, or for holiday activations, but bring your tuner along!

72 de GW4OKT

eBay Links:

Many thanks to Keith (GW4OKT) who recently contacted me, noting that his took his Elecraft K1 to Llyn Brenig (Lake Brenig) in North Wales last weekend, and was impressed with its performance.

His outing coincided with the CQ Worldwide CW contest–a true test of any radio as this is one of the most RF-dense environments you’ll encounter on the CW portions of the HF bands.

Many lesser radios simply fall apart in contest environments like the CQWW.

Not the Elecraft K1, though! Keith noted that he was operating on 20 meters with his GWhip antenna on the roof of his car.

He made the following video:

Wow! I owned the K1 for a number of years and was incredibly impressed with its receiver although I can’t remember if I ever used it in a contest. It’s a brilliant field radio and sports a bullet-proof front end.

I should add, Keith, that I’m not the least bit envious of your Caterham Seven 310 SV. Not a bit. Not me. 🙂

Anyone else love the Elecraft K1 (or the Caterham Seven 310?) Please comment!