[Elecraft] 4-pound Field Day, anyone?

[Walter Underwood]

The lightest battery option is non-rechargable Energizer Ultimate Lithium AA batteries. Those are about 4oz for 3000mAh. If you need more that than, carry a second set. 

wunder
K6WRU

On Apr 26, 2013, at 10:54 AM, Mark Goldberg wrote:

> I am very big on LiFePO4 battery packs, 4 Genuine A123 cell 2.3 AH
> ones to be exact. They start out about 14V and provide about 2 AH till
> they get down to 12V when I stop and switch to another one. This
> allows full power on the KX3 as the voltage drop is very low even when
> transmitting at 12 W. I got packs with a balancing connector and
> charge with a balancing charger.
> 
> You also need to consider the weight of a decent feedline, balun and /
> or counterpoise that drastically effect transmit efficiency. I created
> a go kit with all that and a headset and an extendable pole for an
> inverted V support and a hard case for my KX3 that came to about 7 lb.
> I set that up on a beach in Maui last week with some success, but had
> good success working a contest from my back yard when the other end
> were contest stations with good antennas.
> 
> This is my kit
> 
> 20M
> Item                                        Oz
> Radio With Eneloops               34.4
> Hard Case                             10.5
> Battery with Power Cable        12.4
> Headset                                  6.8
> Balun                                        6
> Pole 20 Ft usable                   15.7
> Antenna wire on looms              2.9
> Extra Antenna Wire for 20M       1.3
> Feed (300 ohm ladr) on loom   12.4
> Base measuring rope on loom    5
> 
> 
> Total Oz 107.4
> Total Lb 6.71
> 
> 
> I added a 2 lb netbook to all this for logging. I hate dupe sheets.
> 
> Mark
> 
> On Apr 26, 2013 9:40 AM, "Wayne Burdick" <n6kr at elecraft.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> This year I'm going to break with tradition and *not* drag tons of gear to my field-day site. I'm going minimal….4 pounds max of radio gear. This will allow me to put more emphasis on food, drink, and enjoying time with my son (now almost 9). If anyone else is up for "FD4#", let me know. I'd like to compare notes on equipment, especially antennas, battery packs, and logging.
>> 
>> 4 pounds (or so) is not an arbitrary number. This allows for:
>> 
>> - a KX3 with internal ATU and attached paddle
>> - mic and headphones
>> - external Li battery, plus 8 internal AA batteries in the rig as a backup
>> - two 50' (roughly) lengths of antenna wire, adapters, and a couple of 1-oz weights to get one wire into a tree
>> - paper log and dupe sheets (maybe…more on this below)
>> - soft carrying case for all of the above (in my case, a Think Tank "Strobe Stuff" bag)
>> 
>> I still expect to be reasonably competitive in the 1B-battery category even with this lightweight station. I hope to operate on 80-6 meters in CW, SSB, and digital modes (RTTY using the CW paddle and the KX3's text decode function).
>> 
>> There are two items I'm still working on:
>> 
>> 1. External battery
>> 
>> I need something that will fit into the bottom of the Strobe Stuff bag. It should supply at least 11 V, and I'd prefer 4 to 5 AH, though I could get by with 3 AH and switch to the internal AAs later if necessary. Has any consensus formed about specific Li battery packs in this class? Ideal max size would be 1x3x2.5" (HWD).
>> 
>> 2. Logging
>> 
>> I actually like paper logging in the field. It's kind of a Zen thing, checking dupe sheets manually (Griffin is old enough to help with this, too). But are there any good FD apps for the iPhone? I need the iPhone anyway so it doesn't count towards the station weight total. If there's an app that's easy to use for this, I'd love to try it. Heck, I'd even pay for it.
>> 
>> Wayne
>> N6KR
>> 
>> 
>> ______________________________________________________________
>> Elecraft mailing list
>> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
>> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
>> Post: mailto:Elecraft at mailman.qth.net
>> 
>> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
>> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:Elecraft at mailman.qth.net
> 
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html

--
Walter Underwood
wunder at wunderwood.org