- Today on Ham Radio Q&A,
I'm going to take you on a tour
of my HF Portable Operating Kit,
so please keep watching for more!
(rock & roll music)
Hi, I'm Michael, KB9VBR
your host form Ham Radio Q&A.
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Well today, we're at Pattison State Park
in Northwestern Wisconsin.
Pattison is located just outside
of the Twin Ports of Superior, Wisconsin
and Duluth, Minnesota,
and this state park is known for
having the highest waterfall in the state
and also the third highest waterfall
east of the Rocky Mountains - Big Manitou Falls.
It's really popular, a popular attraction for the area,
but when we go out camping,
one of the things I like to do
is to take my portable HF kit
and I thought I'd take you on a tour today
of some of the things I bring
when I'm gonna operate out here,
be it at a park, or field day or some other location
where I'm gonna set up some portable HF.
Well the basis of the kit is this sling bag,
I purchased this on Amazon,
links to all of the products that I'm going to show you,
can be found in the video description below.
I like this case because it's well padded,
has plenty of pockets,
so just digging in on the outside pocket,
carries some things like a pen,
a notepad for taking notes, logging
short piece of coax for the tuner.
I always carry extra fuses in a little plastic case.
For any of your power cables,
you're gonna wanna have at least one extra set of fuses,
just in case something goes wrong in the field
and you can keep going.
Opening the next pocket up:
we have more power cords, power cable for the transceiver.
I put Anderson power poles on all of my plugs
just to make that process easier,
of connecting and disconnecting.
I got a second power cable here.
This one has got a cigarette adapter on it
and a power pole on the other end.
One of the batteries I use
has the cigarette lighter accessory port
as the power connection,
so that's handy there.
I also do carry a second power cable here
with just some ring terminals
if I'm gonna connect to another battery.
You can connect directly to that
or to a electric power supply,
a switching or a linear power supply
and then the power pole connectors on the other end.
Next up I've got a little case here
that has just some accessories
like barrel connectors,
BMC to PL259 adapters,
I got a handy little power pole polarity checker.
It's got a power pole on one end
and then it's a little green and a red on the other,
so you can check the polarity of your power polls
if you're connecting them,
or if you just wanna make sure
that there is power running through the cables.
Moving on to the interior pocket, to the meat of our kit,
I have got,
of course the rig itself,
and I keep this rig protected
in a Velcro - foam and Velcro wrap.
I found this online, it's made by Domke.
There's other brands out there,
but this one fits really nice,
the transceiver, which is the Yaesu FT-891,
works great in the field.
Some people don't like it,
because it's a little bit more power hungry
than say, some of the other brands,
but I really like its portability, so, there's that,
and next up, I do carry a portable antenna tuner.
I picked this up at a Ham fest
many, many years ago - it's the MFJ-945C.
I think their current model is the 945E
as in echo travel tuner,
and works well, if I'm using wire antenna
or a dive pole antenna,
and then also I keep my antenna analyzer in the kit too.
This is the RigExpert AA-600.
I like that one because I do a lot of VHF-UHF work with it,
but it also does all of the HF bands too,
and this is super handy for adjusting your antenna,
finding that resonant point,
and I'm just gonna move this aside.
For antennas, what I usually bring with me,
is the Wolf River Coils Silver Bullet 1000.
This'll do 10 through 80 meters.
Have an extendable whip antenna.
This one goes out to about 12 or 15 feet I think,
it's the MFJ 1979, works really good with the coil there.
Carry some extra wire for the counterpoise.
Of course there's coax in here,
and then also, this little device.
It's got the three eights by 24 mount on one end,
S0239 on the other, and then,
a screw adjuster with some claws,
so that you can attach
this to just about any surface,
like a little pole or a stake or tripod
or something like that.
Super convenient when you're out
in one of those wild situations,
and then finally in my kit,
I also do carry a 40 meter dive pole antenna.
I'm not gonna pull that out there too.
I like to carry one of those,
and that's the reason why I always
carry the travel tuner too.
A 40 meter dive pole - you can use it on 40 meters
and of course 50 meters,
and then with the tuner you can set it up nice and low
for an 80 meter NVIS antenna,
so the 40 meter dive pole is really
not a very long antenna, you know 35 feet on a leg,
so it sets up easy in a campsite like this.
Works good for, you can use it for an NVIS antenna.
If you wanna have one wire antenna to carry with you,
you know something like that
is probably the one that you're gonna want.
Well that's it for my portable HF kit.
Do you carry a portable HF kit?
Do you see anything that I'm missing out?
I love to hear your questions and comments,
so please leave them in the video comments below.
Well maybe we'll follow up on them
on our next "your questions answered" video.
For more articles and informations,
be sure to check out my blog at www.jpole-antenna.com
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Well that's it for this week,
I'm Michael KB9VBR, have a great day, and 73.