Hello, Some good ideas here and some good suggestions also.  I think I would set the box up for an external battery or power supply.  That box is going to be heavy enough with just the radios and computer. Another deal about an external battery, you can change the battery at a later date  depending on what conditions you are looking at. Good work, 73'S  KA5SIW

Hello,
        2MT350, there are some merits to what you say.  Amateur radio is great, but you will be talking to other hams, not the general public. I make sure I have both formats, amateur and CB. With both formats, I can relay a request for help (or information) to and from a trucker to public service people.
       About 30 to 40 years ago people tried to use CB during Skywarn events. The lightning crashing noise disabled communication, and hams steped-in with VHF FM and the system worked great. People still use CB for road condition reports.
       Although my CB antenna is down for the short term, I plan to get that antenna back up by Fall. Myself and several other hams have CB units just in case. One thing to consider, AM CB can not deliver clean clear communication like VHF FM can.
I consider CB another tool in the toolbox, at different times, different tools may work, I reserve the right to carry all the tools I might need. 73'S  KA5SIW

          Years ago I was taking a training course at Los Alamos National Labs. The course was on lightning and bonding/grounding. I brought this topic up to the phd EE that was teaching the class. He told me to place a shorting connector on the antenna jack and wrap the radio in a ESDS plastic bag, then store the radio in a metal enclosure, like an ammo can. This instructor wrote the book on lightning and bonding/grounding and he was a ham. I am pretty sure he knew what he was talking about.
           I am too busy playing with different radios to sideline one and take it out of action. I have some duplicate radios and maybe that is what I should do with one of these spair radios. Right now I can spair one Tentec Corsair and a Tentec Argosy(after I make a few needed repairs). Since mo0st of the repeaters would be knocked off the air, not real sure if one HT would do any good. Maybe a set of HT's would be the best option. Heck, three or four FRS HT or some CB's would work great since the airwaves would be silent. 73'S  KA5SIW

       Hello, Spring is coming to New Mexico and time to dust off the portable gear. Last Fall I was elk hunting around Mount Withington and that looked like a great place to do some portable operating. This year I will not do fieldday with the Socorro radio club. I have always wanted to do fieldday on my pontoon boat.
       Looking around, I have too many QRP rigs. I have the HB1B 4bander, a HW-9, Icom 703 and two TenTec Argosys. The two rigs I use the most are the Argosy and the 703. I will keep the HW-9 because I built it as a kit.
       I use the 703 with 2 12v7ah gel cell batteries. Most of the time I use that with a 20meter inverted v antenna. I have a CW filter to install in the 703. This year I would like to build the 703 and batteries into a small backpack. Then I would spray the backpack with waterproofer. If I get this worked out I will post some photos.
       The argosy is not portable, but good for a picnic table or camper station It is nice to have that 50 watts RF output if you need to get out. In the future I plan to sell the 4bander and my extra Argosy.

Glow-Fets?  Very Funny!

I have a Yasue FT-101ZD mark3. Now that is a RADIO. Neat thing about the FT-101ZD, they used 6146 tubes instead of the old TV sweep tubes, that makes that radio the king of the FT-101's. In years past I used a Kenwood TS-830S and that is also a great radio. All of my RF amps use 572 tubes. When I convert my radio shack to solar power I will have to use the solid state amp. The system will not not have the capacity to use AC power amps. 73'S  KA5SIW

Good Topic, considering during the 1930's all the deer were hunted out from many counties in Texas. Since I live out in the country my plans are to stay put. I plan to bury some food stocks and ammo too. Figure to use beans and rice for long term food stocks.
There is not one answer to this question, there are many issues that will come into play depending on local and conditions. Yes, a lot of Rambo's will exit the cities and think they can live out in the country, they will be in for some major suprises. After 40+ years of camping I still learn something every time I head out into the bush.    Interesting how people think they will be able to use scanners and shortwave radios to find info. I think many hams will revert back to CW for critical communication due to power conserns and portability of equipment.

         Welcome aboard, some good people here. I have been a ham for over 25 years and worked in Electronics over 35 years. So far in 2014 I have not been active much on the ham bands. Several repair jobs spread over the ham radio desk and I need to do a bit of clean-up.
         Great thing about ham radio, it ties in with so many other hobbies, camping and outdoors people. I have started working on my CW skills as I was never good at it, got my novice back in 1984. Several friends have been talking about 10 and 15 opening up. When I am on the air I hang around 14.305, and if 15 meters is open I will work that band.
          Later this Spring I hope to get my 6meter/2meter SSB antennas up. If you ever get the chance to do 6meters you can get hooked on those clear clean QSOs using 2 to 10 watts. 73'S  KA5SIW

Gil, I intended to say 40meter lowpower SSB. Another advantage, 15meters tends to have lower noise level. One more point, 40meters CW requires a narrow CW filter on most radios. 73'S KA5SIW

15meters CW has always been a favorite of mine. For portable opps, the higher bands make antennas a lot smaller and the closer you can get to 1/4 wavelength the more efficient the antenna. Too bad this solar cycle has not been a "hot" cycle. As a rule I use only 20meters for portable opps. 40meters require too big of antenna and it is hard to make contact with 40meters SSB.

     Interesting subject, where I work we have to order big power transformers (12470 volt step down to 220) and that takes a 1 year lead time. Without power there would be no water after the tanks are dry, as they have no power back-up for the pumps. Good luck trying to buy gasoline as there is not a gas station in the county that has a back-up power system to power the gas pumps.
     At our casa I have 10 LP bottles and have a LP grill and camp stove for cooking. I have a convection LP stove I can put inside the house and run just enough to keep the pipes from freezing. If I had too I could purge the water lines to protect the pipes. Since that stove is not vented I could not use the stove when we are sleeping.
     For the radio shack, I have solar panels and I would take the batteries from the boat and use them in the radio shack. I could take gasoline from the boat and add that to the car and pick-up truck.
     For food we could empty the freezer, guess you could say we would have a big BBQ. I live in the poorest county in one of the poorest states in the USA. I figure 60-70% of the people live paycheck to paycheck. Since this is a rural area Guess we could buy meat on the hoof, butcher a steer calf and and share it with our neighbors. I need to stock up on basic supplies, rice, beans, flour, dried fruit.
     For many years I have been worried about the safety of the electrical power system. The lose of power is only part of the problem, over voltage spikes and lose of one leg of the power system can cause major damage to all equipment connected to that system.  Talk about a world of hurt.  73'S  KA5SIW

If you are going to do 6meter SSB, you will need a halo type antenna, as SSB is hor. polarized. For 6meter FM the Larson is hard to beat. For 20meter phone I would use a Hamstick. I hope this helps you, have fun.
73'S  KA5SIW

If the boat had a wooden mast, I would instal hamsticks with a counter poise. For sailboats the most common HF antenna is using the backstay to support a 40meter wire vertical or a 20meter dipole. A friend of mine is sailing from Mexico to Tahiti and this is what he uses.
73'S  KA5SIW

Pine Island La.
I was traveling through LA. working on some 6ghz. radio systems and was spending most of my time watching the tower crews. I rigged up a 15meter dipole and made several CW contacts using a NCG tri-bander. One station I worked needed that county for worked all county award. What great fun.  73'S  KA5SIW

Just wondering in any Radiopreppers are heading to BurningMan in Nevada on Aug. 25 to Sept. 2?
I plan to be camping about 8:00-9:00 and about I or J. You can catch me on a repeater and I will be working 20meters with my Icom 7200 and inverted V antenna. 73'S  KA5SIW

One of the best "outdoor guide books" is a 1970'S Boy Scout handbook. Simple basic information and a few drawings.
73'S  KA5SIW