Hello Operators.
It’s always wonderful to get outside, with with some version of my Field Station. This time I was out operating digital qrp, with the Yaesu ft-817nd, a Raspberry Pi, and an Android tablet. This is a pretty regular configuration for me when I’m operating qrp. Here’s my ham radio with the Raspberry Pi playlist if you’re interested.
Station equipment
- Nortent Gamme 4 Tent
- Titanium wood stove
- Yaesu FT-817ND
- ZLP Miniprosc
- QRPVer 10 watt Amp
- Chameleon MPAS 2.0
- Raspberry Pi 3B+
- Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e
- 20ah DIY LiFePO4 Solar generator PowerFilm Solar 2x R28 panels
Here’s a short video presentation of the station.
There were a few different goals planned, for the days excursion.
- Test the cold WX performance of the battery storage.
- Test relaying messages through my home statiin, to augment operating QRP.
- Gain some experience setting up the shelter near freezing.
- Testing the PowerFilm R28.
The station performed flawlessly, but I went away with two additional goals for the near future.
Firstly I again come back to the point of getting rid of the antenna tuner. It’s an useful but unnecessary piece of gear to carry. Each time I head out Man-Portable, I become more frustrated having to include a tuner in my deployments. I mean the tuner solves a lot of problems, but so does a resonant antenna. I’m probably one of the few operators who understands the purpose of a Broadband antenna, and how it actually helps the radio operator in the field. So I’m not a hater, I just don’t want to carry it when it’s not necessary.
So I’ll be testing all of my Broadband antennas. The goal will be to testing which can be set-up, into a no tuner configuration. I’ll also start building and deploying resonant antenna systems, whenever possible.
Next is minimizing the equipment necessary for digital Communications with the FT817/818. I mentioned this in one of my videos about the Yaesu ft-818, the lack of an internal audio codec, means we have to carry this ridiculous audio interface on the outside of the radio. I’m just about to publish a tutorial on getting rid of the audio interface, and replacing it with something a lot smaller. Here are some pictures of the Yaesu ft-817nd configured with the Raspberry Pi, and ready for field communications.
73,
Julian oh8stn
