Hello,

I have written about this in different posts but will group everything here.

A few weeks ago I attended a survival class, took my Weber MTR with me, which is my favorite portable radio. We were about ten people messing around in the woods, some ex-military and outdoors enthusiasts. That night we had a camp fire, great time to set up the MTR and show-off ham radio. It was cold. I shot a wire up a tree, laid out my 25ft of RG-174 to the radio, got my homebrew key, eight AA cells and tiny speaker. Fine... Except that the MTR was almost stomped on a couple times and I feared someone was going to trip on the RG-174. It also looked like it could rain at any moment but thankfully it didn't. I wished then I had brought my PRC-320 instead, and damned the weight... Wich brings me to my first point, ruggedness. The MTR is a great radio for when you're alone or with a friend on a SOTA activation or camping. With a group of people walking and working around, forget it. In a crisis situation, not so great. On the second trip three weeks later I did bring my 320. It did rain, I didn't care. The radio was outside... It got moved around, got wet, it didn't matter one bit. I did manage one contact with Spain. What a relief knowing the darn thing is nearly indestructible. That's what we need in amateur survival radio, something you can use under your car tire to get it out of a mud hole and call CQ right after that.

You think your FT-817nd is good on batteries? Yeah right... The RT-320 draws 175mA on receive and can output 30W, that's right, go cry to your mommy 8) The military knows that you can't carry a truck battery on your back to power your Icom/Yaesu/Kenwood mobile amp-guzzler. I can use a 7S LIPO 5Ah pack to power my 320 and it'll last, well, I don't know, because I never was able to drain the darn thing all the way! It seems like I use the same battery for at least a month! Even the heavier Clansman NiCads last forever. Low current draw is the single most important specification for a portable radio.

Nearly all military manpacks output around 30W. Why is that? Duh! Because that's all you need! At least for SSB. Using Morse code with CW you only need 5W, which is equivalent to around 100W SSB. Forget your expensive linear amplifier, use it to warm up your tent maybe, if you can power it long enough... More than 50W and you're just warming up the air around you. If the band is closed, your 1KW won't make a bit of difference. If it's open, it's open, you don't need 100W. Ok, it's sort of open a bit but conditions are bad? Use another band! Still not working? Go fishing, you're spending too much time on the radio, and remember, CW goes through somewhere, always. Still not working? Your antenna is bad. I chatted with a guy in Connecticut using my 320 and its 2.5m whip. Not impressed? I was in the North of France. I did not have 100W and used a much too short antenna, 3500 miles... All you need is 25W SSB, 5W CW.

I have also learned that wires are not your friend. Manpacks have everything built-in. Tuner and battery are part of the radio. We have too many things connected to our portable radios, it's a mess. I had a first epiphany about this when I put everything for my MTR on a clipboard. I had the radio, tuner, battery, speaker and key all attached to the clipboard using 3M Dual Lock strips. What a revelation! The only cable coming out of the clipboard was the antenna coax. I found the same philosophy in military radios, and it works. It eliminates points of failure and reduces the mess. You can move the radio without having a bunch of stuff dangling behind you, breaking and getting lost. It reduces water ingress in bad weather. We need to group our devices in one case if possible.

Military radios don't care about amateur band limits. If it's a 2-30Mhz radio it means it will transmit anywhere in that range. In a real life-and-death emergency band limits do not exist. So why use a radio that has them? I unlocked my KX2, except for the CB band, which is a shame. I hear the FT-817nd can be fully unlocked. Don't buy a multi-band radio that can't be unlocked. Imagine being stuck somewhere with a broken leg and no cell service. The only station you hear is a guy with a CB ten miles away... Imagine not being able to call him... We are smart enough to know our band limits, we don't need our radios to do it for us.

My RT-320 was pretty darn cheap considering its capabilities, around $350. Shipping one to the US will cost you a bit more. There are American military manpacks but they do cost even more. What we need is an amateur radio which gets as close as possible in ruggedness and simplicity as a military radio. There aren't any that I know of... Some commercial rigs are available but still out of reach for many people including myself.

We don't need to reinvent the wheel, especially not the wrong way. It has been done for us before at great expense, in money, sweat and even lives. We can take everything good in military radios, add a tuning encoder and lighter strong cast aluminum case to create the perfect prepper HF radio. The SGC-2020 was a good try, nothing since then... Instead people buy camo-painted and other pseudo-rugged/military radios that draw too much power and wouldn't resist the first rain or a mild shock. Unscrupulous manufacturers sell "military" hardware-store-material antennas for many times their value. Worst of all, these gismos won't make it when it matters most. It does show however that there is a market.

Until some manufacturer wakes up and smells the coffee we can only build kits and package them ourselves using available cases (look at Hammond cast aluminum series), ammo cases, Pelican and other rugged enclosures... Maybe some Chinese manufacturer will read this, oh please do it! Someone, anyone...

Further reading:
http://radiopreppers.com/index.php/topic,1022.0.html
http://radiopreppers.com/index.php/topic,1104.msg10810.html

Share these links, because we need such a radio ASAP!

Gil.

Hello,

I looked at the specs, until I saw: Current draw on receive: 2A.
TWO AMPS!
No need to look at the next line after that...

Now, the 891 might be an excellent radio for a shack or a car, rather a truck, with a large battery. For prepping or portable operations, useless.

I'll keep shouting it on rooftops, forget about output power and features, look at current draw. All those fancy features you can't learn without a phonebook-size manual do burn electricity, lots of it. Manufacturers and users forget the amateur radio motto: "When all else fails." That includes grid power and gasoline generators guys.

Here is a comparison just for kicks:

• FT-891: 2A.
• IC-7300: 900mA.
• FT-817nd: 450mA.
• RT-320: 175mA.
• KX2: 150mA.
• Weber MTR 4b/5b: 15mA.

On a battery drained by the FT-891 in one hour the Weber MTR5b, a five-band transceiver, will last five-and-a-half days non-stop... Even the RT-320, which has a 30W output, will last more than eleven hours on the same battery. We are talking receive current here, no transmit.

Before buying a radio for portable operations, look at current draw first, it might save you some reading time..

Gil.

Hello, you guys might get a kick out of this:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfTbLvRJ-WtJnW3PvU4pdIw



Interesting that the largest female audience is 25-34 while the largest male audience is 45-54... 94% male audience.

United States(50%)
United Kingdom(9.4%)
Canada(5.3%)
Germany(3.9%)
Australia(2.3%)

Gil.

Gil.

I found this gem in a 1969 publication. It takes a lot of wire but worth it in light of the gain. it is also very easy and quick to set up, being hung only 7ft off the ground.









Gil.

See the PDF file attached below...

Gil.

Gil.

So, who else is getting one?
Build photos later  ;)

Gil.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/252787300518#description

Gil.

Finished! I don't know if it works yet. A video is in the works... I have a bunch of components left over but better too many than too few...



Gil.

Hello,

My survival class this weekend didn't go so well as far as radio was concerned :o, everything else was fun and informative.



What was the problem? Common mode currents, AKA "RF in the shack." Except there was no shack. ::) It was getting dark when I shot my 35.5ft wire up a tree, connected the EARCHI 9:1 UNUN, tuned with my ZM-2 and tried calling on 40m... My key didn't work right, or so I thought... It did work when the ZM-2 was on "Tune." Ah :o The microcontroller in the MTR doesn't like RF... I tried on 30m, 20m, no cigar :-\ No problem, I had my 19ft wire with my 6m fishing pole... Still SOOL. My KX2 isn't so sensitive. There I was in the woods with only one radio and no way to even send my call sign correctly. I even tried looping the RG-174 on a branch to make an RF choke. Total cable length was 25ft or 10m, I can't remember.

Pseudo-random wires can be finicky. I say "Pseudo" because you need to avoid half-wave lengths so your tuner doesn't have to work so hard. I remember trying a random wire and counterpoise on my K1 and feeling needle pricks on my fingers, RF getting to my metal key through the radio...

Using a half-wave wire with an end-fed tuner would obviously work. With a random wire we can add an inline RF choke or use a counterpoise of a specific length determined by trial and error, by spooling the end of that wire, making it essentially shorter or longer. We can also do both... I didn't have either.

Bottom line is, if our wire isn't really random and requires an extra counterpoise wire, why not using a HWEF (Half-Wave End-Fed)? Did I really need multi-band operations? I knew 40m was going to be it after dark...

I was wise to try the MTR with these wires before my trip to the Canary Islands in two weeks because I would not have been able to operate! Lesson learned: Always try your gear configuration before an important event. Which makes me think of all those preppers buying radio equipment to put it in a closet until the SHTF... Unlikely to work at all...

I will make an RF choke and try counterpoise wires, but this reaffirmed my love for the HWEF! Random wires are a band-aid at best.

Gil.

Hello,

I am taking a survival class this weekend and of course will bring a radio with me. I ended up with a similar setup to my Pyrenees trek gear. The box is pretty small as you can see. The batteries visible on the bottom right are AA cells, giving you an idea of the overall size, or lack thereof. The contents are:

• Weber MTR3b CW 20/30/40m HF radio.
• Random wire 19ft antenna.
• ZM-2 tuner.
• EARCHI 9:1 UNUN.
• Rechargeable AA cells (8).
• Homebrew Morse paddles.
• Veho360 speakers (2).
• Earphones.
• Patch cables (2).
• Fishing weights 1Oz (2).

Total weight is 1.12kg (39.5 Oz).

Everything needed to operate is in that box, though I will add a 25ft RG-174 cable and a 35.5ft random wire in case I find a nice tree. I also bring a slingshot, fishing line and 6m telescopic pole.

Gil.

Hello.

I have been thinking for a while of a preppers calling frequency. We need an "official" frequency people can go to if the SHTF. There are few of us and chasing each other all over the HF bands would not be very productive in an emergency. It would also be nice to have a frequency to park on when the radio is kept on in the background. A recent post made me decide to propose the idea now. The question is, where? Here are the requirements I have been mulling over:

This frequency must:

• Allow NVIS operations for regional range communications.
• Be between or around the junction of CW, SSB and digital modes.
• Not require an overly long antenna.
• Work day and night, mostly around dawn and dusk.
• Work during trough of solar cycle, summer and winter.
• Be accessible to users globally i.e. not above 7200 or 3800kHz, etc.

I can't think of a better band than 40m, 7mHz.

The frequency would be used with all modes, including three main modes I would like to propose:

• CW. For its efficiency and simplicity of the rigs.
• USB. To allow the use of military radios and differentiate between calls intended to preppers and regular users.
• PSK-31. For efficiency and to allow for preppers who do not know Morse code.

The above list is in order of preference.

I propose 7100kHz.

Unless everyone is on board to promote this frequency this effort will go nowhere... Comments and suggestions are welcome.

Gil.

Hello,

Sad news :( The KX1 has been discontinued by Elecraft. There aren't many small CW radios left with batteries and tuner inside the case. The only one I can think of coming in kit form and reasonably cheap is the PFR-3: http://qrpkits.com/pfr3.html

If anyone has been thinking of getting a K1 I'd also suggest hurrying... I bet Elecraft is liquidating their last stocks of kits; same for the K2. Too bad, I really like Elecraft kits. They are now falling in the "boring" category of manufacturers unless they come up with something new. I would love an updated K1 in surface mount components, with a similar, maybe slightly smaller case. The KX2 is not a replacement for the KX1, being much more complex and expensive, and not coming as a kit  (screwing a board in a case isn't a kit).

The list of available CW kit radios seems to dwindle while cheap CW Chinese built rigs are popping up left and right... Thanks to Steve Weber and a few others we still have a few decent kits, but isn't it time for new technology to come into play? Surface-mount kits aren't harder, even easier in some aspects, although actually seeing the components is getting harder :o

RIP KX1.

Gil.

Another article on eHam:

http://www.eham.net/articles/38225

Gil

Hello,

This is a video follow-up to Peter Parker's (VK3YE) excellent video titled "Ultra Simple Survival Radio, is it a Scam?"



My $0.02:


Gil.

The SotaBeams Valley Tuner is the only one I know capable of tuning a half-wave wire on 80m. I bought 135ft of #534 from The Wireman, which is a 26AWG copper-clad steel wire with a breaking strength of 25lbs. The SotaBeams tuner is a simple transformer with an adjustable capacitor and a maximum power of 6W.



http://www.sotabeams.co.uk/valley-endfed-halfwave-tuner-80-60-40m/

http://thewireman.com/antennap.html



Gil.