How much does your portable setup weight?

[MM0EFI]

@M8BIA

Obviously

Well obviously the lightest set up is a slimmed down (tr)uSDX in a custom 3d printed case, with built in capacitive paddles and a lightweight wire antenna that you can throw over a tree.

It isn’t necessarily the best, or the most useful or flexible, but it will fit in your trousers pocket.

A Quansheng with stock rubber whip is around 300g, so maybe that’s the lightest SOTA kit, especially if you replace the stock whip with a homegrown Signalstick.

That’s also obvious. Well, until my new mini Baofeng arrives from Ali Express…

[HB9BCB]

@MM0EFI

Well obviously the lightest set up is a slimmed down (tr)uSDX in a custom 3d printed case

Is this case heavier than the one from the printer?
(tr)uSDX Aluminum case

[MM0EFI]

Possibly lighter. Adam @K6ARK folded over the torroids on his radio, added capacative keys and printed a slimmer case.

Smallest possible all-mode POTA kit?

[EI3LH]

@MM0EFI

has the best internal ATU in the business

This. You could find a twig, sellotape a bnc connector to it and it’d still give you an SWR of 1:1 across all its bands.

Delighted with my KX2 (particularly now I read the manual properly and got it working right for CW).

To quote Kevin Keegan though, “I would love it, LOVE IT if the KX2 did 2 meters and 70cm!”

[DL3TU]

As others have written here: The choice of equipment depends largely on your goals and constraints, such as hiking alone vs. hiking in a group, going to an easy summit vs. climbing alpine peaks, etc. Weight is not always the key factor.
Over the years there have been many experimental setups. Three of them have become a kind of standard for me.

1. On easy to access summits with lots of space and (almost) unlimited time, I take the “heavy” version with me. All bands from 60m to 10m, at least 10 watts output power, good antenna performance and redundancy for many components. This comfort comes at a price: it weighs almost four kilograms (3700 g).

2. On summits where weight and space becomes more important, I’m using the following setup. It offers three bands (40/30/20) and at least 5 watts. Antenna performance is still good, 1000mAh are sufficient for 2-3 activations. Weight is 1050 g.

3. If weight, space and time are cruical, I’ll take the “light” setup: QCX (20/30), two loading coils, two sets of radials, approx. 4 watts. Together with a padded box for the radio and a protective tube for the antennae, it weighs 790 grams. Not super light but ok for me. Perfect on restricted summits, QRV in 1-2 minutes.

For special events, such as the Trans-Atlantic S2S-party, the equipment can become very heavy. Large batteries, power amplifiers and antennas with gain will then be added but - as written before - that’s a different focus.

73, Roman

[M5OTA]

@ZL4NVW

Interested in 4m pole details - thats impressively light - my sotabeams 6m accounts for half my kit weight!

Think I’ve posted about it before, but I use a 4m carbon ‘pocket pole’ from DAM that weighs 130g according to my scales. I use it right to the top (ie get a useable ~4m), but only for a lightweight EFRW or EFHW in an inverted V config . I use what I know as a Larks Head knot to attach the antenna to the top using a loop on a sotabeams insulator, with the tie wrapped bit of silicon tube stopping it from slipping down. Piece of cord also from the top makes the third leg of the tripod, and is the one I have into the wind so it’s taking the strain. Obviously paired with titanium tent pegs to further minimise weight, casually ignoring the excess 5kg (cough) of timber I am hauling to the summit.

From memory it was about £40, so not the cheapest. But in my experience it has been robust.

[VK3YY]

I thought I’d weigh in here

QMX portable setup, nothing startling. Station with QMX, inbuilt battery and speaker amp, microphone and three band End Fed Half Wave antenna. Total in light plastic box is 653 grams.
In reality though, it depends on how far we have to walk and length of activation etc. I mostly take the KX2, which isn’t a whole lot heavier, or maybe the FX-4CR or even an IC-706 if it’s not far to walk.

Cheers, Glenn VK3YY.

[GW4BML]

A LOT!!!

[EA3GNU]

I’m curious to know about the battery and audio amp. Do you do SSB? Which microphone?

Cheers!

[EA3GNU]

[EA3GNU]

I’ve thought about using a saddlebag for this trip and others, but she often has to climb pretty hard sections (and she does AMAZING). I just can’t picture her going down the technical parts, or scrambling up steep rocks while carrying extra weight.

She managed to climb this on her own before we even realized what she was doing.

[VK3YY]

Hi Alberto,

The audio amp is an LM386 module driving a miniature speaker. Yes, l use SSB and the mic. is a commercial hand held covert microphone accessory, it’s pretty small.

The amp, battery and speaker fit in a 3d printed case with the QMX on top.

Cheers Glenn VK3YY.

[G8CPZ]

@EA3GNU

she often has to climb pretty hard sections (and she does AMAZING)

Quite right. My 5yo (rescue) male golden retriever leaps up hard sections but my 13yo cocker spaniel - although very fit for her age - needs a bit of help with her little legs. I wouldn’t dream of loading them with my kit.

[Excuse the digression from topic] 73 Andy

[G4OIG]

All this talk of weight reminds me of when I started in SOTA back in 2006. Running an old FT-290R on 2m SSB and FM with 5m of RG-213 feeding a 5el 2m aluminium yagi on a 5m long 25mm diameter aluminium pole, a 12AH SLAB and an old Eurocamp (freebie) backpack. Well, it got me started. It wasn’t until I did a joint activation with Richard G4ERP, did I realise I was almost carrying an anvil. He encouraged me to use Excel to produce a spreadsheet scheduling the weights of all my pieces of equipment and try to make weight reductions as and when I could.

One major factor in my activating is that of doing everything possible to be successful in qualifying the summit. So much goes into the planning and execution of all my activations in terms of time and expense, that equipment failure would be extremely annoying, to say the least. I always carry at least two batteries, have a simple 20m dipole in my pack and a 2m handheld with me. These things don’t add much weight to the total. Even so, I can often carry in around 12kg and, in particular, the equipment that I carry for the Trans-Atlantic S2S events can be quite excessive. One year it totalled 20kg, but thankfully I only had a short walk in on that occasion.

[GM4LLD]

@G4OIG

I always carry at least two batteries

I fall into that category too. But now since making an emergency battery out of “dogging vape cells” I worry no more. Well not about running out of power.

See the end of this post.

A follow up to Dogging, Wombling and Free batteries

18months back I wrote about how I was collecting discarded disposable vapes (electronic cigarettes) and recovering the perfectly serviceable rechargable LiPo cells they contained. Well so far I’ve collected 72 working cells. There have been many damaged or distorted cells which have gone into battery recycling bins. Some of the unused cells awaiting a new “forever” home. [xP1060369] Early on I made two tiny packs to power my QCX radios. I have a small box that contains headphones, batterie…

[G7ADF]

Too heavy to weigh but I’ll add a picture of the last VHF/UHF only activation and a listing of gear.

For our outings there are normally 2 of us, if alone I go lightweight:-

For VHF/UHF/23cm (lightweight operations?) (pictured) :-

FT-8900 - Quad bander with 50W/35W 2m/70cm (never used it on 10m or 6m yet). Used once for satellite operation.

FT-1500m - 502 on 2m

FT-4x - 2m/70cm Handheld - used on approach and for omnidirectional monitoring of 2/70

Alinco DJ-G7 - for 23cm

19 element tonna for 70cm mounted on 2xaluminium poles and 1x wooden brush handle (to enable vertical polarisation)

5 element yagi for 2m mounted on fishing pole

70cm j-pole on the 2m fishing pole

2m roll-up j-pole

PCB log periodic + tripod for 23cm.

5m of RG213 for the 70cm

4m of RG-213 for 2m

2x 13Ah Lifepo4 golf cart batteries.

1 Camping chair

Spare fishing pole (as I forgot who said they were taking 1)

Spare 3 element beam for 2m

Random box of stuff (we all have one of these)

The above on G/SP-017 Billinge Hill shown below.

For full days outings the above less the 70cm beam but add in :

FT-891 for HF

FT-857 replacing the FT-1500 for 2m and 70cm

JPC-12 antenna but with 2 telescopic whips to make a dipole if required.

EFHW resonant for 7Mhz and up

10m rg-8 coax

For the one person days :-
FT-8900

FT-891

EFHW

3 element for 2m + j-pole for 70cm

10m of rg-8

5 m of rg-58

1 fishing pole

23cm stuff as that’s really lightweight.

1 13Ah Lifepo battery thingy.

I think that’s enough to start with

As people have already said, its about what you want to achieve. We dont go for remote high mountain tops, and our activations (whilst not prolific in frequency) tend to be in the 4 hour to 8hour duration.

Ian

[WB6BYU]

I can at least add some levity to the thread… And perhaps some hope for newcomers.

After my first SOTA activation earlier this year, I weighed everything in my backpack. Which was a full-sized frame pack, but without a sleeping bag attached to it. I figured there might be some room for improvement, but I was using what I had on hand.

K2 transceiver 1519g (includes SSB, but not internal tuner, battery, or amplifier)

DC cables for K2 103g

microphone for K2 167g (some day I’ll figure out what it is for)

stenographer’s notebook 164g

pens / pencils 9g

HT 437g

spare HT battery pack and remote mic 454g

2m 1/4 wave whip for HT 27g

2m wire collinear vertical antenna 120g (possibly 2 dB gain over a flower pot?)

antenna kit (coax, dipoles, and vertical wires for 40 - 10m) 633g

another dipole antenna kit for 20/40m 447g (using 75 ohm coax)

80m dipole wires 107g

17m dipole wires 94g

12m dipole wires 31g

15m full wave loop wire 93g

throwing rope / weight / bag 273g

antenna analyzer 717g

coax switch and adaptors 567g (for antenna comparisons - need to build one with BNC connectors)

foam seat pad 125g

J-38 straight key 273g

plastic paddles 34g (small and light, but not a good action)

cable for paddles 54g (with ferrites on it)

earphones and spare 55g

BNC patch cable 52g

RG-174 patch cable 50g

RG-58 patch cable 4.5m long 144g

BNC to wire adaptor 29g

bag of ropes 694g (>200m?)

another 30m rope 79g

5Ah lead gel battery 1632g (too small for K2 current draw)

tool bag 420g

spare wire 65g

4m sectional glassfibre spreader for 15m loop 286g

10m rectangle loop 570g (need to find lighter spreaders)

Total weight with other equipment and water, about 15kg.

All that, and I managed 1 QSO: a 11,000km S2S to New Zealand on 10m. But K7KER made a number of contacts using the 2m vertical and the 40/20m dipoles, and said they worked pretty well. I had hoped to set up multiple antennas and compare them, but didn’t get a chance.

I have other options: a YouKits EK1A for 20/30/40m that is much lighter and CW-only, and a 40m monobander, but I wanted to try 10m as it looked like it would be open. If I need more power, perhaps for a trans-oceanic event, I have an old Ten-Tec Argosy (analogue) that runs 25 - 50 watts output, and a couple of 30aH LiFePO4 batteries (3734g). Both the K2 and the EK1A have room for internal batteries.

I’ve already made some improvements: Bulldog paddles (63g including cable) that clamp on the side of my clipboard; shorter ropes included in each dipole kit; yet another (even smaller) dipole kit (sometimes I want to put up two antennas for the same band and compare them); and a smaller backpack (29 liter?) once I get the straps resewn.

Then, of course, I have more antennas to try out, generally by setting them up along with a dipole and comparing signal strengths.

Obviously, the first place to save weight is the rig and the battery, but as long as 10m, 15, or 17m may be open, I’ll probably stick with the K2. But at this point, I’m not making long jaunts to difficult summits, and the equipment suits my operating interests. I may look at purchasing equipment specifically for SOTA in the future, but for now I’m having fun with a minimal investment.

[W1ETC]

Continuing with first activations: 3kg of radio stuff in a total load of 7.7kg with pack.

The KX3 and supporting stuff includes a 6Ah battery which is larger than I need. I also don’t think I need to buy more batteries so 6Ah it is. Also includes a power cable long enough for use in the shack, Heil headset, PTT adapter, and bits of wire for different antennas, and the PX3 panadapter. You say the waterfall display is not needed. I say it’s handy. The PX3 weighs half of what the battery weighs. I took the stock mic as a spare.

This half year I’ve been plagued by wicked cramps so the chair is not optional. This chair from REI is 476g (the long black bag at the bottom). I didn’t use the wind layers, cap, and gloves but I’m not leaving them home. Took plenty of apples and water. One apple left is visible in the Dyneema food bag. Will probably switch to a water bladder but the insulated bottle of hot is nice in October.

I’ve carried the Garmin 700 with InReach ever since I had my leg trapped under a motorcycle on a remote trail. I got my leg out in just a few minutes without aid, but decided that at my age a panic button is a good idea. This might be the heaviest option for InReach, IDK.

I was comfortable enough, so shedding weight is not an emergency but there are plenty of places to reduce. Activations in November and December may shift my priorities.

Overall, I’m having fun.

Dave

W1ETC

[ZL4NVW]

Finally this topic resurfaces at a I time I can remember where I last saw the scales!

Focussing solely on radio gear, as the tramping / work gear varies too much from job-to-job.

1.7kg without mast

400g for the 40/20/17/15/10m EFHW - most of that will be the 10m of RG174
930g for radio, mic and 3x18650 batteries
360g for the plastic protective box to carry it in

So about the same as my ‘good’ 4-season Nortent tent. Considering that I generally take my ‘poor’ 3-season MSR tent instead to save 600g, it brings home how addicted to radio I must be to carry that lot!

The max savings I could see would be -200g for a custom-made folded ‘buscuit-tin’ box to replace the heavy, bulky plastic - anyone know where I can get such a thing made?

And maybe another -200g if I ditched the 10m coax run (not really practical though for hut-based operation)

Then add 750g for a SOTApole, where needed.