[Elecraft] 4-pound Field Day, anyone?

[Fred Jensen]

On 4/26/2013 9:39 AM, Wayne Burdick wrote:
>
> 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).

I use a 4Ah LiFePO4 A123 pack for SOTA activations and other field 
events [QRPTTF tomorrow] with my K2.  It weighs about 400gm, and is 
pretty close to your size spec above.  Fully charged, it starts out at 
about 12.4V which drops to 11.7 in a very short time.  The discharge 
curve is flat thereafter until just before depletion when it drops 
rapidly.  Be sure and fuse the power leads, the thing will produce about 
30-40C into a short. :-)

The SOTA rule requires that "the final access to the summit be 
non-motorized."  They are deliberately vague to be inclusive for those 
with physical limitations [like me].  My current SOTA rig is the K2, a 
tiny Am Morse Equip paddle on the clipboard I log on, the above battery, 
and an AlexLoop.  My KX1, 900mAh Li-poly model plane battery, and 28 
foot wire made by pulling the center conductor out of a piece of RG-58 
is the backup.  It all fits in my back pack and I can either park and 
hike to the summit, or park there, hike down a bit and back up.  Net 
weight of rig is probably about 3kg.
>
> 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.

I have one on my Android called SOTA Logger but I don't think it does 
dupe checking.  I've actually never used it, paper/pen works just fine.