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Published: Apr 23, 2021 by Joel Vazquez, WEØDX
Something I have always wanted to do but never set the time apart to do it was to work portable HF. Getting in the nature, setup a simple antenna, small radio, and do some contacts. Simple. But for some reason or another I always leave it for later. Not anymore. I wanted to join the fun and not just "hunt" the activators. I want to get in from the other side of the pile-up. Time to get to it and get on the "POTA wave".
POTA (Parks On The Air), if you dont already know about it, promotes the operation of ham radio from a selected list of state parks. This came from a year long activity created by ARRL back in 2016 (National Parks On The Air, or NPOTA).
So to start on it, I started looking for a nice radio that could be easily used on the field. I really didn't want to use my main shack radio for it as I dont want to start unplugging and plugging everthing back together every time I want to go to a park. Also I'm planning on go mostly on battery, so it has to be preferably low power consuption on RX and TX. I'm not really scare of QRP (low power) radios. I'm really not expecting work thousands of stations on a single activations anyway. And solar cycle is starting to come up, so I think I can settle on this. But looking at the QRP rigs around they really didn't fullfil for one reason or another. Until a friend of mine (WP3DN) send me a link of an Ailunce HS2 SDR radio. HF/VHF/UHF, QRP 20 watts on HF, USB connection for digital modes, nice waterfall in the display. A really nice radio. An really solid feel when you have it in your hand. So far, this is comming together nicely.
The antenna, I already had a Buddipole antenna that my lovely wife gave me some years ago, but honestly I think I have use it once or twice. So this is already covered.
Next stop, power. Like I mention, I was looking for using battery most of the time. So looking around I found the Dakota LiFePO4 Batteries that offer free shipping. After doing some calculations (really just playing with this page I found) I decided I could go for a 10Ah battery which will give me 1-2 hours aprox of operation based on SSB. This should be enough for now, and I can add more later if need it.
So far this is where I'm currently at, working on a bag to setup kinda like a go-kit set with an old GameStop bag. I will post some pictures later of the process cause I want to build like a mini shelf to hold everything together. The idea is to just grab it and go. I will post more pictures on this. I plan to work on it tomorrow morning as it is expected to be raining, and do a test run on the afternoon from the patio... lets see!
For more information on the POTA program, click here.
73 for now DE WEØDX