Not much of a compromise

I was asked to operate at an event that I knew there were no trees I could sling a dipole into. I had been wanting to get a new portable antenna anyway and wanted one that I could erect and tear down myself in a short period of time. I quickly settled on the Alpha Promaster and haven’t regretted it.

I’m not a backpacker operator, but I like to operate portable. This isn’t a portable backpacking antenna; it’s a base camp antenna. It’s lightweight and has a great carrying bag, with a tripod it’s about the size and weight of a light camping cot. I goes perfectly with the rest of my camping gear.

I have the regular Promaster (there are also Jr. and Sr. versions) that does 10-80 without a tuner. I bought it in October, and this version has a single horizontal 24′ wire element that attaches to the matching unit where the 17′ aluminum vertical element also attaches. This, along with the ground wire also helps guy it. The aluminum elements are held together with hose clamps and slide into each other when put away. Even though I’ve only done it twice, I can get it up in less than 15 minutes, its very simple to put up.

I’ve used it twice now, once for a JOTA event at a scout camp and once for a NPOTA activation. It sang both times. Particularly the NPOTA activation, I operated on 20 meters from Waco Texas at 100 Watts and was working stations all over the US, 25 different states in one hour from East Coast to West Cost and everything in between, including other portables and Park to Park. Sure, the band conditions were decent, but it exceeded anything I could have expected.

So to sum it up, it’s well built, easy to deploy, and performs great. I highly recommend it.

73,

Tom KN6Q

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