I’ve thought about doing a YouTube film (you can Subscribe to my channel here) of the kit I use for my SOTA and Portable amateur radio operations for some time now. Yesterday I finally got around to it and made the most of calm and sunny conditions (quite rare here in England!).
The selected equipment is the result of a few years operating outdoors and maybe 100 or so sessions on anything from hilltops to volcanoes to mountains.
Here’s a photo of the kit laid out:
My kit laid bare
The video covers what I typically take with me on portable HF session. There are variations but this is what I head out with usually. Instead of typing much more I’ll let the video take over:
As always, please let me know if you have any questions in the comments below.
Vy nice!
TNX fer showing ur /p station.
73 de Pedro, CT1DBS/CU3HF
PS – Ur video gave me some ideas! TNX
Glad it was useful Pedro and it gave you a few ideas, the hobby is all about sharing ideas! Thanks for the pingback from your site as well!
I recently received a couple of QSL cards from you for my SOTA Activations in EA8 back in 2015, I’ve replied to them via the Bureaux 🙂
73, James M0JCQ
Very nice, James! Thanks. It’s great to see the antenna setups that a real ham takes portable — wire, coax, supports! No money wasted on commercially made stuff that doesn’t work nearly as well.
Some thoughts about coax. While the light weight and low wind resistance of RG174 is a nice feature, it’s also pretty lossy. I don’t know how much you have on those very nice winders, but doing the sums, 50 ft burns 1.65 dB on 20M. The same length of RG58 is about 0.75 dB — 1 dB better. Another nice trick is to cut the coax in multiple short lengths with BNC connectors (for weight) and use only as much as you need.
Another thought about antennas. Tape a wire to that nice pole/mast, carry a nice base for it, lay out some radials, and you have a nice vertical. And here’s a nice base that can be pounded into some very hard soil. They’re made by a local guy who parks his small plane in the hanger next to where W6GJB parks his. 🙂 We use these to guy 30 ft masts that hold a small tri-bander for Field Day and other contests. Very solid, yet the pins come out easily. Also, if you can rig radials a few feet off the ground, the antenna will be a dB or two more efficient. Not only that, but the coax is shorter, so less loss, and the lower radiation angle can work more DX.
Yeah, a dB doesn’t seem like much, but when we’re QRP, we need all the help we can get!
Jim K9YC
Santa Cruz, CA
Thanks Jim, you make some very good points. The RG174 is a compromise and you are right to point out it is lossy, I only tend to use it below 20m so I’m not overly concerned due to the benefits (i.e. low wind resistance – it’s always windy here in Britain!).
For the upper HF spectrum I use verticals for the low angle take off and I have indeed strapped a wire to the pole with radials to make cheap and affective DX antennas. I made one for contesting this year on 20m with 12 elevated radials, it works well and costs a few USD 🙂
73, James M0JCQ