Many months ago I stumbled onto a portable HF antenna with 36 reviews on eham, all of them rated with five stars. It was The Ventenna Company's HFp - Vertical.  I have found that ham products with all five star ratings on eham are well worth checking out. Then I found a nice video of KG6LI using the antenna to do a successful SOTA activation. I decided it would be worth buying an HFp, so I went to the website to buy one.  Ooops, they have stopped selling them through HRO. I seem to have missed the boat!  

Oh well, I went on to other things. But then yesterday I was looking through the classified ads on QTH.com and came across a listing of a used HFp for sale in very good condition. I offered $200 for it and the seller agreed! So I will be able to try one out after all.   

I'm excited for it to arrive. It has a LOT of parts and they have to be assembled in just the right way to get a resonate antenna on any given band, no tuner required. Like putting together a swiss watch and suddenly there it is, the correct time. And all those parts don't take up much room so it's a very portable solution.  I can imagine learning the correct magical incantation and then flying off on the carpet in just the right direction.   

Ventenna does seem to sell spare parts on their website, so when it arrives I'll make a complete inventory and see whether there is anything I'm missing and whether any parts might be useful to have as backups.  Then I will head for a shady spot in our yard to start practicing assembly for all the different bands. I should be able to get it working on all bands from 80m all the way up to 6m. And it will work with as much as 200 watts, as well as QRP flea power. This might be an antenna that will deserve to have it's own name.  Black Magic?