The manpack radio setup is complete (and honestly has been for some time now)! The remaining bits that I needed were a shorter length of coax to connect the remote antenna connector and a LiFEPO battery. I opted for a 1 foot length of LMR-195 (slightly less loss and more rigid than RG58) and a 9Ah Bioenno battery. I did also opt for a N9TAX SlimJim antenna for this kit. An in-line power meter was also added to the setup. For some reason Yaesu decided not to have the voltage be available on the radio’s screen for some reason, despite it being available on rigs of the same age and class as this one. Bit of a failure there, IMO.
I managed to get out for some testing at various points throughout the summer in its mobile configuration (just the radio sitting in the shotgun position in the car) with some good results. I also ended up taking it with me while I camped at Ferris Provincial Park in September to see what kind of range was possible with this rig. I chose Ferris because the campground is on top of a drumlin and would have better line of sight to distant stations
The antenna used for testing was the Arrow II. I did have the SlimJim on hand, but wanted the best range possible this time around. The SlimJim has been tested previously and was found to work decently in an urban environment with stations fairly close.
The results of my testing are below:
Day 01 – 25W Output:
- VE3PBO (Peterborough) – S9+. Contact made during net.
- VE3CKL (Lindsay) – S1. No QSO.
- VA3FOY (Bancroft) – S2. No QSO.
- VE3BNI (Gilmour) – S4. No QSO.
- VA3LTX (Dysart) – S1, heavy scratch. Unable to open repeater, but able to listen.
- W2RUI (Lockport, NY)- S0-S7. Tropospheric ducting. Attempted contact up to 50W but not heard.
- VE3KFR (Campbellford) – S9+. PROCOMM net in progress, listened only.
- VE3RTR (Rice Lake) – S9+. PROCOMM net in progress, listened only.
- VE3QAR (Belleville) – S2. PROCOMM net in progress, listened only.
- VA3JWO (Picton Wide Area) – S9. No QSO.
- VE3TJU (Picton Airport) – S5. PROCOMM net in progress, listened only.
Day 02 – 25W Output
- VE3KFR (Campbellford) – S9+. Contact made, participated in the Professional Loafers Net.
- VE3TOR (Scarborough) – S5. No QSO.
- VA3ROG (Collingwood) – S0-S4. Tropospheric ducting. Station ID’d numerous times as WRQROC, and had a VE3 net controller, but not able to find any info on what this is, so assuming it’s VA3ROG due to its large footprint. No QSO.
- VA3JWO (Picton Wide Area) – S9+. Contact made.
After 3 days out running at 25W, including 2 days at camp and 1 day operating mobile from the car, this rig only used 5.78 Ah of juice from the battery’s 9Ah capacity. This was with APRS firing away every 60 seconds on the second VFO while driving and sporadically (likely every 10 min or so) while at camp, and with voice being used as well.
The weekend prior to the above outing, I was out and about with the manpack. A single packet was received in Pennsylvania on its first hop by station N3TJJ-7, a total of 257.7 km away. To date, this is the furthest simplex contact I’ve been able to make (automatically sent, but I still count that) and was very likely due to tropospheric ducting and also helped by the elevation of both the transmit and receive sites.
All results from my testing have been added to the page for each respective repeater on Repeaterbook.com.
maltosekincaid.com 