When my 40 meter folded dipole gave up the ghost after ten years of weather, the hard drawn copper wire I used had become very brittle, there were several breaks in the legs and try as you might you could not get a good solder joint on the breaks. It was then I decided to look around and see what was available on the market.
MFJ was considered, but just looking at the construction of the antennas left much to be desired. In a few years corrosion would take over and the same problems would result.
I did a little more research and found the Buckmaster antennas, I was impressed with the construction, it is top notch, this antenna will last for decades in the weather. However, this is where the good news ends.
This antenna is off center fed, so one leg is longer then the other one and that leg according to Buckmaster should be towards the direction you want to favor. Ok, did that, hoisted this antenna up and had high hopes of covering 80/40/17/12 bands I either have not worked in years, or in the case of 40 I wanted to chase some more DX.
Buckmaster claims you do not need an antenna tuner, well let's see the results. On 80 meters it is totally unusable, I never found a single resonant point across 500 khz. On 40 the SWR is 1.3 no problem, it works out fine. On 17 about a 1.5 but have worked several dx stations with out a problem.
12 meters a disaster, plus it can only be used on 20/15/10 as a receiving antenna, SWR is horrid. I have the antenna installed on my tower allowing ample space from the tower to the antenna, the height is 60 feet at the apex of the antenna.
Granted, I may be seeing some interaction from the tower, or my tri-bander 15 feet above the Buckmaster. So far, I have gained one band back and gained 17 meters, the rest forget.
Granted, you may have better results using a push up pole, or a small support structure on your roof supporting the apex of the antenna. Personally, I have not seen too many multiband wire antennas that could work all bands successfully, some will have good SWR. while others have a very narrow bandwidth of 50 khz or less.
Personally, this was a big let down, we may reconstruct a new 40 meter folded dipole, it worked great, or we may make one for 17 meters only and take the Buckmaster down and sell it off. We are now approaching fall, so no antenna work outside for a few months. Let me see how I feel once Spring comes around again.
