[K3PZN-List] Portable Ops

[Curt Milton]

Kyle

Portable ops?  Are you thinking something like SOTA (summits on the air) or POTA (parks on the air) ?
You are going to have generate YOUR requirements.  

It depends if you are going to drive to where you operate, or hike !  For the latter, many use light-weight (and low receive power) QRP rigs.  My K2 can run many hours (at 5-10 watts transmit) on a small gel cell.  (I am hopeful someday a cheap all-mode rig will emerge, if I haven't missed it -- some folk are using BITX rigs on 20m that are quite small and cheap).  

Yes do determine if you really will use that 'large' battery.  

Thinking 'outside the box' - if I were a college student - knowing I might not have much time for ham radio - I might operate a WSPR transmitter and/or receiver.  These can be very low power (and of course dorms and the like have AC).  

A rig to operate in the park?  Even something like an FT817 might operate for a couple hours on a smaller battery - but I haven't done the homework.  For your existing rig - examine how many amps it uses on receive.  Let's say its 2 amps.  If you operate 2 hours - this is 4 amp hours  on receive.  Then we need to add transmit.  This will give some idea how many total amp-hours might be used.  Note we cannot run a battery down to 0 amp-hours, and have the radio operate -- it will take a certain minimum voltage before it will not power up.  I suggest at least doubling your amp-hours to account for this.  

Curt
 

    On Friday, July 21, 2017 12:55 PM, Douglas Drake <ddrake10 at verizon.net> wrote:
 

 How much does it weigh Kyle?


On July 21, 2017, at 10:42, Kyle Thornton <kyle.3599 at outlook.com> wrote:

Hi all,
So I just left battery warehouse with a battery that I plan on using for portable operations atleast I think. I got a 23mah 550cca deep cycle battery. It's not sealed and it's about the size of a car battery. Is this to big? If it's to big I have a week to return and hopefully exchange it. 
Thanks 
Kyle 
KC3FMP 
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