QRP/p With an FT-817 20w PowerFilm & 10Ah LiFePO4 pack

Quite often I sit out here at a nice spot along the sea enjoying the final moments of the summer/autumn. Even with the sun quite low in the sky, I’m still getting a good amount of amperage out of the PowerFilm. I’m also thinking about how nice it is, not actually being time limited by my batteries.

 So many ham radio operators get their start in man portable field communications, using a finite amount of portable power. Consider for a moment not being limited by the amount of power you carried. Imagine the possibilities of having only one or perhaps two battery packs with you, but being able to replenish them indefinitely, (or at least until the sun goes out). That’s where I am with Man portable off-grid power.

The point of this battery pack and solar panel combination is to:

  •  keep the battery fully charged up, 
  • or, increase the operating time by augmenting the internal capacity of the battery, with the additional amps drawn in by the PowerFilm F15 1200. 

The solar panel ads no additional weight or actually incredibly silly amount of additional weight to my backpack. So it would be silly not to take advantage of this additional operating capability.

So I just wanted to take a moment to share these images with you and a word about portable power. I’ll go back to collecting the video material for the PowerFilm F15 1200 video. In that video we’re going to showcase the PowerFilm solar panel, and test it with the 10Ah LiFePO4 battery pack. I also seriously need to admit how nice it is being out in the field again, after the weeks of bad weather and timing.

73

Julian oh8stn

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