Comet CHA-250HD - any opinions?

[Cutter]

I'm itching to get my HF radios back on the air while my buddies in Arizona are still alive. Back there, where wind and lightning were not an issue, I ran a homemade 4-element fan dipole with an ugly balun but I'm strongly leaning toward a vertical on a tip-down mast here. I'm admittedly thin on a lot of antenna theory, like just how arials work (given all that's written about how number and length affects everything) and whether 'tis better to send and/or receive vertically or horizontally polarized signals. Some people apparently think hitting the car wash every week is "fun", and others like to twiddle with their antennas. Myself, I gravitate toward things that work like light bulbs; screw it in and it works until it doesn't, and then you replace it.

Given that even a wire antenna that I can make for $20 costs about five times that, and the majority of HF antennas seem to cost upwards of $1K, I figure an antenna that looks easy to set up, doesn't require radials, and costs about $500 is a good deal. Is anyone familiar with this antenna? I'd ask my Elmer, but he's a silent key.