Thank you Fraser! That helps greatly! I was not aware of the out of band “Baofeng” type issues. I took it with me on vacation last month and ran it, the pi (via a buck converter), and the tuner via a 6ah battery off of a fused power pole block from windcamp. I sometimes ran the sdx from the battery pack. Worked out well on FT8, but I didn’t try phone. I’m not sure if I’ve ever tried the speaker at all, to be honest. The tuner is pretty lightweight, but “ounces=pounds and pounds hurt” so I’ll definitely look into the resonance of the EFHW. The one I took with me was about 71 feet long and the tuner got it to a 1.0 SWR, so I assume that it was pretty resonant (or the cheap Malakit ATU-100 is really good). I do have one of those carbon fiber carp fishing rods from Amazon, which would be good to wind the wire around. My bag a Maxpedition day packs with Molle webbing on it, so securing it to the bag as a mast support should be simple enough.
I’m not very handy with a soldering iron… yet, but will keep the split lead idea in mind. Ideally I’d like to get a more self-contained and self-powered unit like a Surface tablet to run the digital modes. Right now I have to VNC into the Pi’s wifi with either a phone or a tablet, so not the best option. Something like a fully charged Windows tablet would eliminate the Pi and most of the power needs, especially if I can get rid of the tuner.
Thanks again for your help and advice,
Ryan
KI6BTY
Antennas
SotaBeams Link Dipole (x2)
Telescopic Whip for HT
Garmin 66i
Garmin Oregon 600
Packs
Lowe Day Pack (near end of life after 39-years, the last 10 of which have been “SOTA only”)
Osprey Aether 100L pack (for long backpacking-SOTA trips)
Finally - my trusty “worn only for SOTA” SOTA hat. I am planning to officially retire it on April 26, which will be my 10-year SOTA anniversary.
That “hottest day of the year” weather warning we had a couple of summers ago. The one when the English were told not to go outside or they would die.
I cycled 9 miles to Ballater and activated Craigendarroch GM/ES-078 because it has a partially wooded summit. Not wooded enough it seems. The KX2 didn’t like the heat and throttled back to 5w. IIRC it was around 32°C.
I wonder why they paint portable outdoor radios black?
When I got a heatsink upgrade for my KX3 I chose the (cheaper) un-painted option. That said, I try to keep my kit in shade on a summit, if only to make reading the screens easier…
I which I could drop it to 1 kg but it seems impossible. The only way to reduce weight would be removing the case and stuff the gear randomly in the bag. Saving 340g … But I find the case usefull not only for safety during climbing but also during activation as a radio deck.
Fred gets my vote for the smartest kit of the list. Probably North America’s most experienced activator with over 900 summits, several over 4,000 meters. Less is more!
two ropes of ~5m each (as extensions of those above or to be used instead if the short length is sufficient)
arborist throw weight to get those ropes up into a branch
two small guying stakes (if ropes cannot be fastened to a tree)
SOTABeams heavy-duty mast ~7m height
4 bungee cords ~60cm length to fasten the mast to a fence post
small logbook with spare pencil
My small SOTA pack (for before-work or after-work semi-spontaneous activations if time / weather allows):
small bag containing:
(tr)uSDX, with headphone
N9SAB end-fed antenna (20m)
~5m coax
small battery
two ropes of ~15m length each
arborist throw weight to get those ropes up into a branch
two small guying stakes
small logbook with spare pencil
I usually throw a rope over a tree branch and deploy the antenna so that both ends are at least ~2m above ground (one end preferably higher 5-8m) and do not touch any leaves etc if possible, especially with the small (tr)uSDX, as it has no tuner. Leaves / branches / being too close to the ground seem to detune the antenna (the G90 is able to tune that).
If no suitable tree(s) are found, I use the mast.
The mast is also used if I try to do DX: There I use the end-fed tuner attached to an AliExpress 5.6m telescopic rod fastened to the mast at ~3m above ground or alternatively set-up with BNC binding post and 3 radials of ~5m. The G90 tuner must be used in this case.
These are ad-hoc antenna setups and the performance may be much better with a antenna that is properly designed, rather than cobbled together. But with these contraptions I managed to get S2S from HB9 to NA, ZS, VK, ZL. On the other hand, I just might be surfing the wave of the rising sun A sign of this might be that this vertical mast setup didn’t want to be stable on Kaienspitz HB/AR-004, so I reverted to my sloping end-fed setup (with mast) and I still managed to contact VK1AD on VK2/ST-001.