The first Bath Buildathon took place on Saturday 26 January with 12 amateurs building their first transceivers. Some had been licensed for years but had never built anything whilst others were Intermediate students from the Bath radio classes. Builders travelled from as far away as Wolverhampton, East Grinstead and Southampton showing that there is still a widespread interest in homebrewing in the UK.

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I have a difficult location for building aerials - I’m at the bottom of a 4 storey building, and my garden faces a public park with a pathway running right alongside my boundary fence making them a tempting target for passing kids. I’m also almost directly below the communal TV aerial.

To cut a long and boring story short, I decided the best option (for now) was a rotary dipole for 80m - and it needed to be discrete if it was to avoid complaints.

And withstand ‘very’ high winds on a regular basis.

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