Yeah, this system and the battery power supplies aren't intended to be humped around in my rucksack. I am looking down the road to doing something with Lithium Ion batteries. I also have a foldable solar panel and a charge controller. That's the next thing on my To-Do list before Field Day, to get the solar panel and charge controller in place.
When I'm not using the radio it stays locked up in it's case disconnected from everything. I run it mostly from grid power; but I do run it from time to time from my battery pack(s).
The lid of these boxes does have a silicone O-ring inside. I have tested them for water-tight integrity. The problem arises though when I cut the holes for the chassis mounted PowerPole blocks. Those aren't watertight in the least, plus I'm wondering about how they would fair EMP-wise? Granted there are no delicate circuits inside so it may be much ado about nothing. I was hoping that PowerWerx made some sort of boot to go over them; but I haven't found one yet.
Thanks for the compliments on the backpack portable FT-8900R. that was my first attempt and home-brewing anything. It came out much better than I thought it would. The bracket that the radio is mounted to can be removed so I could in theory put the FT-857D in it's place if I chose to do so.