My Ham Portable Operations

 W7RTA

Charlie Bottita

I am often asked what equipment and antennas I use when operating ham radio via portable. Here is a break down of what I use. Pics towards the bottom. 

**Pictures are at the bottom**

Radios:

Icom IC 7300 

Xiegu G90

HT's - Baofeng and a Yaesu (I use these mostly for SOTA. 

I use the IC7300 in my home shack and portable. I made a 'rack' for the radio, bandpass filter and tuner. When I do Parks on the Air (POTA), I mostly use this radio. Living in the Pacific Northwest, the need for extra power is helpful. There are not as many POTA hunters on the west coast, as there are on the east coast. So the extra power is helpful. Having the radio in a rack makes it easy to pick up from my shack to my van. I thought about buying another radio, but this set up works and is very portable. The rack is made from a plastic 3 drawer from Walmart. I took out the drawers and cut the frame. I mounted each item using zip ties. 

The Xiegu G90 I use mostly for Summits on the Air (SOTA). Or if I am out on my scooter . The G90 has a very low power draw and is not too heavy. The built in tuner is great. So no external tuner needed. In the pic below, I am using the G90 on a drive up summit. I have it set up to do digital modes. 

Antennas and masts:

Various lengths of end fed random wires with a 9:1 unun ( https://www.ebay.com/itm/191226640113 )

20m speaker wire dipole homemade

Hamsticks, Hamsticks and Hamsticks https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-011589

Hamstick Dipole - https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-014059

Jackite 31' windsock pole  https://www.jackite.com/online-store/Windsock-Flying-Poles-c21767998 

Harbor Freight Push Up Flag Pole  https://www.harborfreight.com/20-ft-telescoping-flag-pole-kit-64342.html  

21' Crappie Pole from Amazon  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074M6BRZ8/?th=1&psc=1 

Electric fence post  https://www.google.com/shopping/product/3228771980588713026 

Triple 5" Mag Mount for Hamsticks - https://www.hamradio.com/detail.cfm?pid=H0-006460

Single 5" Mag Mount for Hamsticks - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013HHINDS/

Random Wire -For POTA and SOTA I utilize the random wire antenna with the 9:1 unun. I carry 41', 58' and 84' lengths. Those seem to work the best for the bands I want to use. This is a compromised antenna, but it works very well. I have made many many contacts around the world using both my G90 and 7300. I also use a MFJ Common mode choke 20' in between two feed lines. The random wire can be set up in various configurations, depending on my situation. When doing SOTA, I carry the crappie pole and the 41' random wire. I run the wire up the pole, with the unun at the base. Then I take the remaining wire, and tie it off with mason string so that the antenna is an inverted L. When doing POTA, I use the 31' Jackite pole with the random wire. Depending on my location, I can choose which wire length. I also run the wire up the pole, with the unun at the base. The remaining wire, I will tie off with mason string to a electric fence post. Or use the Jackite pole and slope the wire with the unun on the lower end. 

Speaker wire dipole - I made this antenna out of some speaker wire I had laying around and a female PL259 connector. I trimmed the wires and on the first try got them at the right length. This antenna works very well. I use my Jackite windsock pole as the center mast and run a feed line to my radio. 

Hamsticks - I use Hamsticks in different configurations depending on my needs. 

    Mag Mounts- The simplest method is using the above mag mounts and putting what ever bands I want to work on the top of my van. Once the Hamsticks are tuned, they work great! Very easy to deploy and be on the air in a couple of minutes. I do not drive with these on the roof. Although I did a 5 hour drive with a 20m on the roof and my G90 talking to folks all across the country. 

    Hamstick Dipole - I purchased the above flag pole to use with my Hamstick dipoles. I have two dipoles that I deploy. A 20m and 40m. I mount the flag pole to the side of my van with a bucket with weights at the base, and a 8' painter pole that is mounted to the rack on my van. I bungee cord the flag pole to the painter pole. This set up supports the flagpole very well. I have the two dipoles and two feedlines on the flag pole up 20' in a cross formation. The benefit of this set up is that it is less noisy than a vertical hamstick on the roof of my van. The dipoles also 'hear' the S0 signals so much better. I can turn the dipole to eliminate some noise from nearby sources at times. To deploy this set up is not very difficult. The drawback is that I only have 2 bands. I add other bands to the mag mounts on my roof. So I have 4 bands available to me. I can switch the mag mount hamsticks very quickly if I want to work other bands. 

    Free standing - Yes, Hamsticks free standing. I have a short tripod I fastened a 3/8" mirror mount on. I built several lengths of radials to use with this set up. I put a hamstick on the tripod about 2' off the ground and attach 4 to 8 radials. This works. And it works pretty good. I also bought a handful of measuring tapes from the Dollar Store and put clips on them to use as radials. Those work great. Easy to deploy and store. This has been more of an experiment and I don't use it often. But it works. 

Batteries / Solar- 

Lead Acid 100ah and 36ah Deep Cycle  

Miady 16ah Lifepo4 (3 in parallel) and a 8ah https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07X7MD2JK/
8ah Miady -  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07X5G2FFW/

Lead Acid -  I use these batteries while camping. They work well for keeping things charged, such as my laptop, lights and other things. But for use with the IC7300, they are not practical. They do work for the G90 though. The batteries are bulky and heavy. So they take a back seat to the Lifepo4 batteries. 

Miady 16ah Lifepo4 - I had purchased one of these batteries to try. It worked very well. So I bought two more. The trick to running them parallel to start is to make sure they each are at the same charge level and voltage. I wired the three batteries together to make 48ah. I put them in a ammo can I picked up from Harbor Freight. I have a watt meter I use inline between the battery and the radio https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088NC3PZG/ This lets me know how many watt hours/ah I have used. This is critical with Lifepo4 batteries, as the voltage reading does not let me know how many watt hours are left. So I can look at the meter to see how many watt hours / amp hours were consumed. On the flip side, I plug the meter inline when charging. This tells me how many watt hours are being sent from the charger to the batteries. If I consume 11ah, then I should see 11ah from the charge when complete. 

Miady 8ah - I purchased this to use with my G90 when I need to be most portable. Like when I do SOTA. This battery size can be carried on a plane. The G90 consumes 1.75ah per hour of full duty cycle (I tested using FT8 for one solid hour). So I can get many hours of use before the battery needs to be recharged. 

Solar - I purchased the Harbor Freight Solar Panels a few years ago. They worked well for camping and charging the lead acid batteries (The charge controller that came with it is only good for lead acid). I disliked having 4 panels to set up each time. So I purchased a Rich Solar panel off of Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DNP14JY/ . This also worked with the charge controller from Harbor Freight to charge my lead acid batteries. After I purchased the Lifepo Batteries, I had to buy another charge controller https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MU0WMGT/ This is very inexpensive. The lead acid controller had no RFI issues. But the Lifepo charger does. I increased the length of the cable from the charge controller to the batteries and put a 1" toroid wrapped with the cable. That has all but eliminated the RFI. I am one that likes to use what I have for a project. I had several old laptop wall chargers laying around. They are 15v at 3amp. I wired one with a plug similar to my solar panel. I plug the laptop charger into the charge controller when I am home, and charge my batteries. It works very well. (The charge controller doesn't know the source is not solar) The charge controller limits the voltage that is required by the batteries. The batteries have a BIM Battery Isolation Manger built into them. So when they reach full, they tell the controller to not send any more. I charge the three 16ah in parallel. I also set up something similar to charge the lead acid batteries with the other charge controller.   

When I am in the field and the sun is out, I can run my IC 7300 full power most of the day while the Lifepo batteries stay fully charged. For 5-6hrs of use, the IC 7300 will consume about 13ah of battery. 

POTA Van - I have a 2015 Honda Odyssey that I have removed the middle seats and folded down the back seats. I put in a 'bench' seat of totes with pads on top. I am 5'7" and I fit sleeping across right behind the driver and passenger seat. I have some side boards I made to protect the interior sides. I put a board across the top and use it as a table. I lined the floor with removable linoleum. I use this rig for camping and for POTA activations. As well as other ham activities. It is very comfortable to operate in. 

Extra Gear - If I want to put my random wire up in a tree, I have a couple ways of doing that. I have rope with a weighted end I toss up. It works, but I cannot go very high. I also have a crossbow pistol that I mounted a Zebco closed face fishing real onto. I added weight to one of the darts and I put a fishing swivel on it. I point and shoot the dart with good accuracy up to about 50' into a tree. The dart will slide down the other side of the tree, I will then tie a mason string to the dart and 'reel' it back over to me with the mason line. I will then tie the mason line to the wire and pull that back over the tree. I do this mostly in the forest and not parks. https://www.amazon.com/80-lbs-Self-Cocking-Pistol-Crossbow/dp/B00EFF1K1E/ I had the crossbow already, so I didn't go out and buy one. There are other options for getting lines in a tree, but this works for me. 

Headset and PTT - I use a headset/mic when operating POTA mostly. I can hear much better with a headset on. And the mic frees my hands to log. I made a PTT out of an unused light switch. Hey it works and cost me nothing to make :) I have several headsets that have a 3.5mm female port on them. This is so a wire can plug in and go directly to a mp3 player, tv, etc. The headsets I have are comfortable. The IC7300 and the G90 both use electret microphones. I purchased a couple of these https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KHRWC78/ for $15 on Amazon. They work great! This splitter is required https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B094VS7HBP/  as well as an adapter for each rig. A headset with a port like this one is what I use https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ZN2IZ1Q/

Computer  - When Portable, I operate on phone and digital. I have a dedicated laptop that I purchased used from https://blairtech.com/laptops/ I paid $119 for it. It is a Lenova Yoga 11e. I bought additional RAM to make it 8gb. Check back with that site, as they have new deals often. That laptop works well for my portable operations. I also use it in my shack for digital and logging. The only problem is battery life. All laptops have this issue. I can get a solid 4 hours of use , which is good for most activities. I also have an external battery I had laying around to charge it. So I can get another 3-4 hours from it. I also had a small 10" Windows tablet laying around. I had thought about putting together a Raspberry Pi system, but I found the Windows tablet works. One big plus with the tablet is it is charged via 5v USB-C. I have about 10 USB batteries ranging from 3000mah to 15000mah. I ran some tests using the tablet with FT8 for an hour. It only consumed 1,000mah of power. That was consistent use for the hour. The internal battery lasts about 3+ hours. But I plug in any of my USB batteries and I can get days and days of use. https://www.amazon.com/CHUWI-Hi10-Quad-core-1920x1200-Multi-Touch/dp/B087WNHD88/ I use the tablet without the keyboard (it detaches), as I really don't need to type much when doing FT8. Using the keyboard does use slightly more power, but not too bad. 

Logging Software - when I am portable I use HAMRS. I use this for POTA and SOTA. I use it with my Samsung 8" tablet and a Bluetooth keyboard. I also log on paper at the same time. When I hear a call sign coming back to my CQ , I write the call sign on my notepad. As I repeat the call sign and give a signal report, I type it into HAMRS. I use a headset, so this is easy to do while talking. Having the call signs on paper gives me a good backup if something were to happen to the digital log. When done with my POTA activation, I export the ADIF file and email it to myself. Assuming I have cell service. When I get home, I import that ADIF file into my N3FPJ ACLog software and upload to eQSL and LoTW. I try to send my logs to the POTA area rep for upload into the POTA system about once a week. I may activate several times a week. For SOTA, I do it a little different. I just log on paper, then enter into HAMRS. Why? Because Summit 2 Summits are handled correctly. I can review the ADIF file before uploading to the SOTA site and my ACLog. It works for me. 

Internet Access - I have a Visible Wireless phone. For $25 I get unlimited data/phone and hotspot on the Verizon system. My data speed can be throttled during peak times, but I rarely run into that. I launch the hotspot on my phone to use with my Samsung tablet. I have a cell booster with a cell yagi antenna. I use then when camping and works well. I have an older version of this I bought refurbished. https://www.amazon.com/weBoost-Signal-Booster-Cradle-Holder/dp/B073V5S3T7/  This is the Yagi I use. https://www.amazon.com/Electronics-Wideband-Directional-700-2700-314411/dp/B00J14YEHQ/

Pics of my setups. 

This is the setup inside my van. The rack on the left contains the IC7300, MFJ Auto Tuner and a Broadcast AM Bandpass filter (mostly needed at home). The tablet is used for logging as well as the pad. 

The G90 on the left. The Chuwi 10" Windows tablet on the right. I did a SOTA activation using FT8. (Wanted to test the viability and it worked well)

The small tripod with the hamstick mounted and tape measure radials. This was 20m and it worked very well for my SOTA activation. 

When using the 20m speaker wire dipole on the 31' Jackite windsock pole, I run a 41' random wire sloping down. The 9:1 unun is at the low end. This set up gives me resonant 20m and I can band hop using the random wire. 

The Jackite pole can be used many different ways. Here I am using it to support the JPole roll up antenna I have for 2m/70cm. 

 

When I am out in the forest, I take my somewhat off road scooter. The bag has the G90 and other items. The 21' crappie pole is seen here too attached to the bag. 

21' crappie pole at a local park.

The 21' crappie pole is attached to my scooter. I am using the G90 at a local park with a 41' random wire. 

The 20m speaker wire dipole supported by the 31' Jackite windsock pole. 

My solar panel and my POTA-Mobile

The Harbor Freight flagpole supporting the 40m and 20m hamsitck dipoles. Each have their own feedline. 

This is how I support the flag pole on my van. The painter pole is extendable. When done, I twist and slide it back in. . 

The base of the flagpole I use a small bucket with weights and a piece of PVC the flag pole is inserted in. 

The inside of my POTA-Mobile (Van)

If you have any questions, you may email me at charliebottita@hotmail.com 

73 W7RTA