I put together the smallest HF setup I could....

[SiB]

Here it is, using an SGC SC-2020 radio and a three band inverted V dipole. (The first setup in the video) Open to suggestions for improvements! I am going to try and put in a 12aH battery instead of the 7aH.



First post for me, great place you guys have here!

[williaty]

Yeah, as you found:

1) Propagation today over US/Canada was terrible
2) Both the North American QSO Party SSB contest and the International Lighthouse Special Event were today. Good day for contesting, terrible day for making contacts for the hell of it.

My comments about your setup:

1) FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S CHOCOLATE, COVER THE TERMINALS ON THE BATTERY! Right now, you don't have anything in the box to short them. Doesn't mean you won't absent mindedly toss a metal object in there in the future. While the batteries you're using are small, they're still capable of delivering several hundred amps for a few milliseconds. That's enough to develop a nice ball of plasma and blow the shit out of things if the battery decides it doesn't like it. The last thing you want to do is end up in a ball of fire with sulfuric acid rain during an emergency.

2) Since you have Anderson PowerPoles (yay!) It's worth making up pigtail adapters to every other connector known to man. With the right doo-dads, you can then get power from just about anything or give power to just about anything. This helps in situations were you encounter a battery with no power poles (so a ring terminal pigtail or a spring clamp pigtail become important) or when you encounter a radio with the factory plug on it (so a t-connector pigtail becomes useful).

3) Have you actually calculated the runtime with that battery and those solar panels given the average insolation in your QTH/AO? I ask this because I did that calculation recently and was stunned by the answer. My radios draw 2A at 13.8VDC during receive (and a total of 35A during transmit if both are key-down). To have a 90% likelyhood of having enough power to leave the radios on to hear news, with no transmit time at all, it would take 900W of solar panel and 600Ah of battery bank in my location. This is due to the fact that the insolation in December is only 1.34 hours. I would imagine that you're probably worse off being even farther north. You may want to develop a second (or third, or tenth) box that you can add with contains nothing but more batteries and more solar.

[KYZHunters]

Welcome SIB and thanks for the video. Hope you have a long and profitable stay.

[majorhavoc]

Excellent timing, SiB. I'm looking into getting into ham and a mobile rig like you're running seems like the best, most affordable compromise in terms of transceiver power and mobile set up capability if I want to get actively involved in my areas ARES/CERT chapters. So I found the visual and auditory explaintions of your set ups very informative.

Thanks for sharing that video and welcome to ZS!

[Ike]

Very cool!

[SiB]

Yeah, as you found:

1) Propagation today over US/Canada was terrible
2) Both the North American QSO Party SSB contest and the International Lighthouse Special Event were today. Good day for contesting, terrible day for making contacts for the hell of it.

My comments about your setup:

1) FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S CHOCOLATE, COVER THE TERMINALS ON THE BATTERY! ........

2) Since you have Anderson PowerPoles (yay!) It's worth making up pigtail adapters to.....

3) Have you actually calculated the runtime with that battery and those...........

1) Yes thanks, I am going to put the 12aH in, it has different terminals which will be covered when connected! If the 7aH stays I will put something on.

2)I just recently got into powerpoles, so I have been building various conversion harnesses and switching all my gear over and such. Ill probably add a alligator clip set to this box.

3) No I haven't done the calculations, I am just trying to get as much in this particular box as I can. I do have larger solar panels and a few Optima batteries that I use for my IC-7000 and IC-v8000. This SGC radio is 400ma for RX, 2.5A for TX at 5w, 4.5a for TX at 20w

[TacAir]

Cool
I have an 817/Pelican setup & run PSK-31 / CW while in backpack mode.

Thanks for sharing, I'd like to hear more about the cycle side of your wanderings as well.

BTW, the rig in the vid is a FT-817, not a SG-2020. I have both, the -2020 is used in the RV, the -817 in the backpack.

[SiB]

Cool
I have an 817/Pelican setup & run PSK-31 / CW while in backpack mode.

Thanks for sharing, I'd like to hear more about the cycle side of your wanderings as well.

BTW, the rig in the vid is a FT-817, not a SG-2020. I have both, the -2020 is used in the RV, the -817 in the backpack.

Ya the video thumbnail you see is the 817, you see the 2020 in the first minutes of the vid.

[coldshot]

3) Have you actually calculated the runtime with that battery and those solar panels given the average insolation in your QTH/AO? I ask this because I did that calculation recently and was stunned by the answer. My radios draw 2A at 13.8VDC during receive (and a total of 35A during transmit if both are key-down). To have a 90% likelyhood of having enough power to leave the radios on to hear news, with no transmit time at all, it would take 900W of solar panel and 600Ah of battery bank in my location. This is due to the fact that the insolation in December is only 1.34 hours. I would imagine that you're probably worse off being even farther north. You may want to develop a second (or third, or tenth) box that you can add with contains nothing but more batteries and more solar.

No kidding. I just calculated the Ah needed to run my 857D for 72 hrs. I was surprised to see a whopping 336 Ah! Too much weight and cost in batteries, to many solar panels, so I'm now in the market for a generator.

[williaty]

3) Have you actually calculated the runtime with that battery and those solar panels given the average insolation in your QTH/AO? I ask this because I did that calculation recently and was stunned by the answer. My radios draw 2A at 13.8VDC during receive (and a total of 35A during transmit if both are key-down). To have a 90% likelyhood of having enough power to leave the radios on to hear news, with no transmit time at all, it would take 900W of solar panel and 600Ah of battery bank in my location. This is due to the fact that the insolation in December is only 1.34 hours. I would imagine that you're probably worse off being even farther north. You may want to develop a second (or third, or tenth) box that you can add with contains nothing but more batteries and more solar.

No kidding. I just calculated the Ah needed to run my 857D for 72 hrs. I was surprised to see a whopping 336 Ah! Too much weight and cost in batteries, to many solar panels, so I'm now in the market for a generator.

Keep in mind that with a generator, you're going to have some pretty serious RFI problems to overcome while it's running, not to mention sourcing fuel for it continuously and dealing with the audible noise from it. There's no free lunch in this, sadly.

[SiB]

So I put the 12ah battery in, still fit everything inside the box, and the battery terminals are mostly covered.

http://i.imgur.com/Mw2m5.jpg

[MarkW]

Here are some actual numbers and measurements from my Icom 706MK2G:
80M
100W 15A
10W 7.5A
5W 6A
40M
100W 16A
10W 9A
5W 6A
20M
100W 19A
10W 9.5A
5W 9A
10M
100W 15A
10W 9A
5W 7.5A
2M
50W 12A
440
20W 7.5A

Now my wattmeters are not top of the line equipment so for 100 watts I just cranked it up to high so it could be 90 watts or 110 watts. However my ampmeter is pretty decent so I suspect that is a pretty accurate number regarding consumption. And keep in mind the 706 was not designed as a QRP radio at all, drawing 2 amps on receive.

Also, once you have established contact with someone you can often crank the output down quite a ways. I'd be tempted to just start using it, perhaps on a contest weekend, and see how long the battery lasts if you are the one calling CQ instead of trying to break into a pile up.

BTW, nice looking setup!

[williaty]

It's actually surprisingly hard to find a "normal" radio that draws much under 2A at idle. They're all not very power efficient.

[TacAir]

It's actually surprisingly hard to find a "normal" radio that draws much under 2A at idle. They're all not very power efficient.

Depends on the radio, the older FT-7 pulls 400mA on RX, 3 A on tx, and in the same power-out league as the SG-2020. The even older Atlas 210X (yes, I do) pulls about 300 or 400 mA on RX, the volume setting makes the difference.

The 'digital' part is what makes the rig so hungry.

[Radio guy]

"Digital" doesn't necessarily mean the radio is power hungry. The new KX3 HF rig is a full blown software defined radio and there is more computer stuff inside than RF. It draws about 150ma on receive. Forget using the Icom 706 series for battery use, they are just too much of a power hog on receive.

I also think some of you guys are not calculating power consumption realistically and are coming up with way too much needed battery power. Most common HF rigs draw an average of 6-8A on SSB transmit at 100w. Sure you measured 15 or 20A when transmitting on FM or continuous CW but you don't use FM on HF and actual CW is very low duty cycle and so is SSB.

If you have a radio with reasonable RX current like a Yaesu FT-857 at about 600ma RX current and you figure an average of maybe 8A on transmit (SSB) and a reasonable TX to RX ratio of maybe 8 or 10 to 1 the battery needs are only a few amps per hour. The 600ma receive current would be nearly continuous every hour and equate to 600maH and 8A transmit for 10 minutes of each hour gets spread out over the entire hour and equates to 1.33AH so combined that's 1.93AH needed for a 100w SSB radio transmitting 10 minutes out of every hour.

I routinely operate a Yaesu FT-857 at 100w with a Buddipole 4.6AH lithium nano phosphate battery pack for several hours at a time and have never run out of battery power. In fact when traveling I don't carry a power supply anymore because the Buddipole battery and charger are smaller and lighter than my Astron 20A switching supply.
Radio Guy

[TacAir]

I'd love to get me some of that Elcraft love, but don't feel like taking out a loan on the house.

Kind of like back in the day when the KWM-2A was the hot/high performance radio to have, if one had buckets o money sitting in the shack. @$1250 USD in 1961, that would be $9,577 in today's dollarettes.

So, in comparison, the Elcraft still offers far better performance, weight savings and all that at an excellent price point - sorta. @ nearly $1,600USD, the rig is still out of reach for the vast majority of hobbyists found the bands today. Wait a second, just how many tanks of gas is that.... : )

The older radios had can had used at a better price point. A shame, but ham radio has always been (pretty much) a rich mans hobby, unless you roll your own.

Cool hobby, it's neat that someone with an older rig, like the Collins, can still converse with a person running the latest and greatest.

[williaty]

The other problem with the Elecraft stuff is that, by the time you finish ticking the not-really-optional option boxes, they usually double in price. Of course, that didn't stop me from ordering one of their Wattmeters this week Might just be the cheapest product they sell. Well, unless they sell a hat or something.

[Radio guy]

Around these parts many of the hamsters I associate with have a KX3 on order (me too) and one friend has already received his so the performance seems to be justifying lots of sales for Elecraft. I also have the K3 and think its one of the best bargains in the high end radio arena where you can build it to suit your needs and stop or take it all the way. Even fully loaded its the highest performing receiver you can buy in its price category and only surpassed by one Yaesu (cost more) and the new Elecraft KX3 (cost less).

BTW, got a KWM-2a with matching 30L-1 amplifier. I could never afford one when I was younger but when you get old it just makes sense to buy some things that you will enjoy for the rest of your life.

On the old radios talking to new radios subject, every year at the Dayton Hamvention there is the largest gathering of operational WWII BC-611 hand held radios since the war and they end up talking to some of the latest military radios like the PRC-138 and some Yaesu FT-817s and the like on 3.885MHz AM. That is a span of over 65yrs of radios all talking to each other.
Radio Guy

I'd love to get me some of that Elcraft love, but don't feel like taking out a loan on the house.

Kind of like back in the day when the KWM-2A was the hot/high performance radio to have, if one had buckets o money sitting in the shack. @$1250 USD in 1961, that would be $9,577 in today's dollarettes.

So, in comparison, the Elcraft still offers far better performance, weight savings and all that at an excellent price point - sorta. @ nearly $1,600USD, the rig is still out of reach for the vast majority of hobbyists found the bands today. Wait a second, just how many tanks of gas is that.... : )

The older radios had can had used at a better price point. A shame, but ham radio has always been (pretty much) a rich mans hobby, unless you roll your own.

Cool hobby, it's neat that someone with an older rig, like the Collins, can still converse with a person running the latest and greatest.