Facilities of the Portable Station
== 2009 ==
[The last renewal of this page: Nov. 21, 2011]
Since I started ham radio, in the past forty two years, I have never treated seriously a portable operation from the hotel or the filed in the travel or the business trip, except so-called mobile operation. However, the encounter with a super excellent radio, YAESU FT-817 forced me to get enter to the new world.
I normally leave this radio on the operation desk of the radio shack, and connect the coax cable of the beam antenna. Actually it is doing a great job as a "main radio". You never can underestimate the 5W QRP! A combination with five element monoband Yagi for 14MHz is making unbelievable surprising results.
All the stations that I worked were surprised saying " There is no difference with a barefoot station running 100 watts!" They firstly ask me "Are you really running only five watts?", and then give me a compliment saying "Congratulations on your QRP!"
. If there is no pile-up, I can work most of the station on the band. When the band propagates well, I can even get a call to my CQ. (With QRP. it maybe very common not to call CQ, but try to find CQ calls or to give a call to the station just finished his previous QSO.)
I can get the same RS report as I send him from the station running 100watts, and two or three S-units less RS report from the station running 1KW.
Due to the bad habit of years in the past, I was simply convinced that my signal must be unable to reach without running a high power.
I just can not believe myself what I was trying to do putting two 3CX3000s in my homebrew linea amlifire on 18MHz ten years ago. The era of "ECO" in this 21st century, this QRP radio is really something. What makes me so comfortable is the fact that I do not have to worry about interference! It is exactly "killing two birds with one stone".
The main prupose is to use it out of the home shack, and I am going to try it from now, but I just gave it a small try the other day in the ALL-JA Contest on 7MHz CW. I stick out a 5.5meter long fishing rod from the window of upstairs of my house with a 10meter long wire on it, imaging I am doing it from the balcony of a hotel in a travel. Although about a half of the wire (5meteres) is left within the house on the floor from the radio to the window, I got a call back at my first call from most of the stations. I worked nearly twenty stations in a very short time. Oh, it's great! Unbelievable!
Equipments
** Transceiver: YAESU FT-817ND 1.9MHz-430MHz CW/SSB/AM/FM 5Watts with a modified AC power supply for DYNABOOK laptop computer (input: AC100V-240V, output: DC15V 2A).
** Antenna: 10meter long wire + 5.5 meter fishing rod (18 step contractive) + 10 meter counter-poise
** Antenna Tuner : MIZUHO KX-S9 (Pai-C type for a single wire antenna)
** SWR meter: DAIWA CN-410M modified (Removed unnecesarry PCB, and reassembled in the minimum size covering with an acrylic box.)
** CW paddle: LLAVES TELEGRAFICAS "AMIO" mini paddle
** Microphone: ICOM SM-2 modified. (Replaced the microphone element to the one for SM-8)
I modified AC power supply for DYNABOOK laptop computer to the one for this transceiver. Accepts input voltage from 100V to 240V, putting out
DC15V for 2A, and small and light. It is just fit to FT817ND. The voltage indicator of FT-817ND shows 14.7V with this power supply. (FT-817ND accepts up to 16V)
I do not like a handheld microphone except in a mobile as I love a ragchew. I found it out ICOM SM-2, an old microphone is just fit to this compact radio. I replace the microphone element to the one for ICOM SM-8 putting a little modification in the circuit on PCB built in the microphone stand. I got a really excellent audio and sufficinet microphone gain with this. (With setting a gain volume at the bottom of the stand at a half, I can talk at 30cm away from the microphone to get the same microphone output level as the one with an original handheld microphone at just in front of the mouth.)
The SWR indicator of FT-817 is not very clear, and if I try to monitor SWR, no way to monitor the RF output level. So, I decided tp use DAIWA's smallest SWR meter CN-410M, putting modification to get it much more smaller, attaching detection unit to the back of the meter directly, removing unnecesarry PCB, adding two small potentiometers instead, covering with an acrylic box. This improves the comfort of operation dramatically.
The antenna tuner of MIZUHO KX-S9 has a pai-C circuit and has three VCs. Matching range is wide and with a 10 meter long single wire, I can get good resonance from 3.5MHz to 50MHz without any problem. It is an indispensable item for FT-817. A red LED turns on at around a good resonance, and is very helpful to find the resonanced point quickly.
At the top of the body of KX-S9, two rubber feet is mounted, so that the FT-817ND with a rubber case being set on the tuner could keep a good angle for operation.
AMIO, a mini-paddle made by Llaves Telegraficas in Spain is plated with gold, and is just fit to FT-817ND.
It has a good weight, and is good for operation, different from many other mini-paddles. Operation feeling is just excellent.
This is ready to go out! All the equipments just comes in and fit to a bag for a laptop computer. The mini-paddle is in a small plastic box with a cushion material.
Red and black wires in the inner pocket of the bag are the antenna wire and a counterpoise wire.
AC adaptor for DYNABOOK laptop computer modified for FT-817ND is set in an outer pocket of the bag.
A bag with red and black color on the right is a fishing rod.(5.5m long, 18 steps contractive)
All in one! Ready to go! Very easy to take it out. In case of travel abroad, you just can throw this into a suit case. The bag has a good cushion, providing a good protection.
[Postscript 1] (Sep. 18, 2009)
I got a new handy radio for me to bring it on hiking and climbing mountains.
MIZUHO's PICO Series, 50MHz SSB/CW tranceiver MX-6S, and AZDEN's full-size whip antenna ARD-6M (1.3meter long).
It used to be a really popular handy-talky, and the price is always stays high in the Yahoo Auction, but I was lucky to get a very beautiful one at a very reasonable price.
It has two crystals build-in for a VXO to cover from 50.150MHz to 50.250MHz. (Output power is 1 watt)
On 50MHz, many stations are available, and we can get toutch with very far stations once we climb up to a high elevation. When we have a sporadic-E propagation, it is very easy to cover all over Japan, including overseas as well. This small handy radio has such a possibility, and could be a good choice as a carefree sub-rig.
[Postscript 2] (Dec. 19, 2009)
When I go in my automobile, but it is not a mobile operation, like diriving up to high elevation to put up an external antenna out of the automobile to run radios that I brought from home, like a "mini-expediton". I prepared facility for such a case.
I firstly prepared 50MHz antena (HB9CV) as the operation from the high elevation for this band is very effective.
I also prepared a telescoping antenna mast (4 meters long at max.)
A commercial made mast base is not very cheap, so I bought a base for a sign-pole for a parking lot in a "Do it yourself home center".(only US$27.00!) I drilled two holes together with a mast being inserted to fix it. I bought stainless thum nuts to tighten these two bolts. I changed all the nuts into thum nuts so that I can assemble it and put it up without any tools. A small golf-bag for practice is just fit for a storage.
[Postscript 3] (Nov. 21, 2011)
Even in the portable operations, the "highest peak" is DX-QSOs! I had a QRP portable transceiver since many years ago, which I built putting large modifications to MIZUHO's PICO-14, and I decided to tune and refresh it up to let it get back for the actual use.
I do not like to call 5W as QRP. It should be less than 1W! It is a lot of fun to operate QRP with a mono band transceiver for 14MHz which is so handy and easy to carry in a travel bag.
I modified MIZUHO MX-14 installing 1.CW Keyer, 2.AF tone oscilator for monitor, 3. DC-DC convertor from 12V DC to 9V DC in a space for the batteries, mounting a key paddle top of the cabinet, so that it will be an all-in-one transceiver.
A simple wire dipole for 14MHz is the best match for this radio, and this combination gives me exciting DX-QSOs from time to time.
It is exciting to get a DX contact where we don't expect much, hi hi!
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