Tag Archives: Portable Radio

CCrane’s new C. Crane CC Skywave 2 . . . and the OODA loop

By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM

A software glitch at a power station, a tree branch rubbing against a transformer, a geophysical incident, a weather event, even a civil society misadventure . . . It doesn’t take much for things to rapidly go to blazes. So what do you need when Really Bad Things happen?

Back in the 1970s, Colonel John Boyd, an air warfare strategist, came up with the idea of the OODA loop. Originally designed for air combat, the OODA stands for: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. In other words, see what’s going on, understand how it relates to your situation, figure out what to do, then do it. OODA . . . got it?

So when really bad stuff happens, once you get clear of immediate physical danger (if any), you (or me or anyone involved) need to do your OODA loop: see what’s going on, understand how it relates to your situation, figure out what to do, then do it.

And to execute your OODA loop, you need information, right?

Soooo, when the lights are out, the internet is down, and maybe cell phones aren’t working, you need an emergency radio to find out what’s going on. Rob, W4ZNG, endured three weeks without electricity on the Mississippi gulf coast as a result of Katrina. In Rob’s case, during Katrina, all of the local broadcasters were wiped out. There was a local low-power FM broadcaster who got permission to increase power to 1,000 watts and was broadcasting where to get food and water. There was a New Orleans AM station that was on the air, but all of its coverage was “New Orleans-centric.” After a few days, some local FM broadcaster, working together, cobbled together a station that they put on the air and began broadcasting news. Rob also began DXing AM stations at night to get additional news. I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say radio was Rob’s lifeline to what was going on.

So, at the most basic level, an emergency radio needs to receive AM and FM stations. If you live in the U.S. or Canada, you also want NOAA weather radio channels, and, if things are really horrible, the ability to receiver shortwave radio might be useful.

Recently I had a look at an excellent candidate for an emergency radio. CCrane has brought out a new and improved version of their super-versatile pocket-sized Skywave radio, and they sent me one for review without charge.

The new radio, the CC Skywave 2, covers FM from 87.5-108.0 MHz, AM from 520-1710 kHz, National Weather Radio Channels 1-7, air band from 118-137 MHz, and shortwave from 2300 to 26100 kHz. Small enough to fit in a shirt pocket, the Skywave 2 measures 3 inches high, 4.75 inches wide, and 1.1 inches deep and weighs about five and one-half ounces before you insert 2 AA batteries. (It can also be run off an optional CCrane power adaptor that can charge optional NiMH batteries. The manual warns: DO NOT USE LITHIUM BATTERIES).

According to CCrane, improvements to the Skywave 2 include a new micro-USB connector for external power and battery charging, a better speaker with slightly more amplification, circuit noise reduction, long feet for better stability, and a socket for plugging in an optional wire antenna adaptor available from CCrane.

I found the Skywave 2 really easy to operate. At the simplest level, select a band, then press one of the up or down buttons, and the Skywave 2 will scan to the next strong station. There is also an ATS (automatic tuning system) that programs all receivable AM, FM, or shortwave stations to memory buttons. Just select the band you want (AM, FM, or shortwave), press the ATS button, and the ATS system will scan the entire band and automatically set all available stations in sequence 1-10. If there are more than 10 stations are available, then the remaining stations will be stored on the next memory page and so forth. Each band has its own set of memories.

Everything is clearly labeled, and a gold label above a button indicates that if you press and hold that button, the function labeled in gold will be activated. If you want to directly enter a frequency (once you have selected the band you want), you must press the FREQ button first, then punch in the numbers. Otherwise, pressing any of the number buttons will activate the memory assigned to that number. To store a station in memory, press and hold any number button for two seconds.

Although I have no equipment for formally measuring things like ultimate receiver sensitivity, I found the performance on all bands to be typical of what I have come to expect of CCrane radios: excellent.

Full points to CCrane for writing a superb manual. In fact, I’ve found that the manuals for all the CCrane radios I have owned or tested have been well-written. I don’t know who is writing those manuals, but a big thumbs-up for clear manuals that are easy to use. The Skywave 2 manual even includes a section on “Hidden Settings” . . . ya gotta love it! Well done.

One other thing deserves mention: the Skywave 2 comes with CC Buds Earphones. I found they fit my ears comfortably and sound great . . . waaay better than the cheap-o earbuds I bought at a big box store.

The bottom line is: the Skywave 2 is a pint-sized powerhouse, and I can easily recommend it for anyone who needs an emergency radio, a travel radio (it has an alarm you can set), a weather radio with alert, or an ultralight MW DXing radio, or who simply wants to have a lot of fun with radio in a small, easy-to-handle package (An aside, listening to air band is pretty entertaining).

I found the performance to be excellent (for the radio’s size) on all bands, comparable to the CCrane Skywave SSB 2 that I own. In addition, with the new model (and the optional adapter), you can now plug in an external long-wire antenna for longer-range reception. That’s just great and could prove really useful.

The chief difference between the Skywave 2 and the Skywave SSB 2 is that the Skywave SSB 2 receives single sideband signals, making it possible for the listener to hear amateur radio and utility signals (like transoceanic flight control) that operate in upper or lower sideband mode. In addition, the SSB 2 includes (as well as the radio, carry case, and ear buds) a shortwave antenna and the CC wire terminal antenna adapter. In addition, the SSB 2 also has some software capabilities not available on the Skywave 2. For example, on the SSB 2, the Automatic Tuning System can also be used on the AIR band, and once AIR band frequencies have been stored, the SSB 2 can scan them. You can find my review of the Skywave SSB 2 here: https://swling.com/blog/2022/11/checking-out-the-new-c-crane-cc-skywave-ssb-2/

To conclude: I sincerely hope you never have to “do” your OODA loop, particularly not when things are going to blazes, but if you do, the CCrane Skywave 2 just might be helpful in getting the information you need. And, in the meantime, it is a very enjoyable radio to use, and I can recommend it without reservation.

Click here to check out the C. Crane CC Skywave 2 at C. Crane.

For more of my musings regarding the CCrane Skywave radios, please consult:

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Loop-On-Ground Antenna Part 3: Tom’s low-noise, low-profile, portable antenna evolves

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Loop on Ground Antenna Part 3

(using multiconductor wire)

by TomL

It dawned on me recently, perhaps due to sloppy thinking or unintended distractions, that I never wrote about my modified Loop on Ground (LoG) receive antenna that I use at parks and such. For over a year now, I have been using 3-conductor rotor wire bought cheap at the local hardware store and have wired the conductors in series. Grayhat (Andrew) was the inspiration when he decided to create a folded dipole along the side of his house.

The usual construction of a LoG antenna for shortwave is a single wire of about 60 feet in circumference in order to not go above one wavelength for 20 meter band usage. If you recall, going above one wavelength will start creating weird lobes in the reception pattern. See – Loop-On-Ground Antenna Part 2.

However, I did not like this 19 foot diameter wire on the ground in public parks just waiting to be tripped over. Like, the time when a horse got loose from its owners and almost tripped over my 60 foot wire. I don’t think I would have liked the resulting lawsuit!

So out of fearful necessity I took some leftover RCA 3-conductor rotor wire, about 29 feet of it, and wired a loop with the conductors in series. This gives about 81 feet of total conductive length. But since it is folded onto itself, there is an undetermined loss of resonant length. Callum (M0MCX) of DXCommander fame has experimented and found folded dipoles need three times more length in the folded section to reach resonance, so my loop is probably around 69 feet (electrically). See – Fold the end of a Dipole Back – What’s Happening?.

In the picture below, the black wire with Ring Terminal at the bottom goes all the way around to the other side, soldered to the green wire, which goes around and is soldered to the red wire, which goes around to the Ring Terminal at the top, plus tie-wraps to hold the wires together.

The next picture is how the Wellbrook Medium Aperture preamplifier is connected to the loop with BNC cable that goes to the 12V power injector. I have had this Wellbrook unit for maybe 6+years with no signs of problems. WARNING – do NOT use the Wellbrook preamplifier in the presence of high powered RF energy like your Amateur Radio antenna pumped with 1000 watts from a linear amplifier; the Wellbrook premap might just overload and get damaged! I did use this loop and preamplifier at last year’s 2022 ARRL Field Day and was able to get away with it because we were only using 100 watts per station. Listening to the 9pm 3916-net trivia group was fun but I still needed to keep it away from the transmitting antennas. Continue reading →

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Guest Post: Everyone should have a “Crisis Radio”

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Jock Elliott, who shares the following guest post:

The Crisis Radio

By Jock Elliott, KB2GOM

Sooner or later, it will happen to you. What’s ‘it’? Short answer: a crisis.

It could be as simple as you wake in the morning to find the power is out; you don’t know how long it has been out, and you don’t know when it is coming back. It might be a weather event: a blizzard, a sandstorm, a tornado, a derecho, a hurricane. It might be a geologic event like a tsunami, earthquake, or even volcanic activity. As recent events have shown, it could even be a war or a revolution.

When normal life is disrupted, and uncertainty is perched on your shoulder like a vulture, you will want to know what’s going on, and your usual means of getting information – telephone, smart phone, internet device – may also be disrupted.

When that happens, radio can come to your rescue. Your local FM or AM (medium wave) station may be on the air, providing vital information to your community, or NOAA Weather Radio may be providing hazard information. In extreme cases, shortwave radio may be beaming information to your area when all else fails.

One of the points that was made when our own Thomas Witherspoon was interviewed recently was that people tend to regard shortwave radio as “crisis” radio.

So I have a couple of very specific recommendations.

First, make sure that your household has a “crisis radio.” By that I mean one that will receive your local AM and FM broadcasters as well as shortwave radio, and, if you live in the US or Canada, NOAA Weather Radio. If you can afford it, I recommend getting a crisis radio that has single sideband capability (SSB) so that you have the ability to intercept ham radio communications, which might be another source of information.

Toward that end, I can heartily recommend the CCrane Skywave SSB radio. (Let’s be clear: I have no commercial connection with CCrane; I get nothing from them for making this recommendation, I purchased my Skywave SSB with my own money.) It has AM, FM, Shortwave, Weather, VHF, Aviation and SSB Bands. It is very small, measuring just 4.8″ W x 3″ H x 1″ D and weighing just 6 ounces without batteries. It will run for over 50 hours on a couple of AA batteries and comes with CC Earbuds, SkyWave SSB Carry Case, and CC SW Reel Antenna which boost sensitivity for shortwave and ham radio listening.

It is a crisis radio that you can stick in your pocket, backpack, purse or briefcase for deployment when the need arises or you simply want to listen to some radio programming. Further, you don’t have to be an expert to operate the CCrane Skywave SSB. Thanks to the Automatic Tuning System, just select the band you want to listen to, press and hold the ATS button for two seconds, and the Skywave SSB will automatically search for stations in that band (AM, FM, Shortwave, etc.) and store those stations in the memory banks for that band. You can later check those memories to hear what programming those stations are broadcasting.

Second, and this is important, if you listen to shortwave radio at all, take the time to let the stations know. Drop them a postcard; shoot them an email, do whatever you can to inform them you are listening, and you value their transmissions.

Why? Because we all want those stations to be there if and when the next crisis happens. And if your local AM or FM station provides special programming to the community a weather event or geologic emergency, for the same reason, be sure to let them know how much you appreciate their efforts.

As a fire captain observed a couple of years after the North Ridge earthquake in California: “You cannot be over-prepared for communications in an emergency.”

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Loop-On-Ground Antenna Part 2: Tom upgrades his low profile, low noise, portable DXing antenna

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, TomL, who shares the following guest post:

Loop on Ground Part 2

by TomL

My previous Loop on Ground (LoG) experiment was useful which entailed connecting my Wellbrook loop amplifier to a 100 foot loop of speaker wire in the field at my favorite local Forest Preserve. It really brought in stations I had never heard before or strong stations in a more powerful way that made the audio really pleasant to listen to. This report will describe more experiments with smaller wire loops to see what the limitations are. 100 feet of wire is quite a lot of wire to mess around with especially in the cold weather or public places that do not have as much private space.

I don’t understand all the electrical interrelationships but a long posting at RadioReference.com had a great discussion about creating a 160-20 meters LoG receive-only antenna. It is 11 pages long but is worth reading how “nanZor” experimented with various parameters for general use. Kudos to him for documenting the findings as the design changed over time. You can find it here:

https://forums.radioreference.com/threads/160-20m-log-loop-on-ground.370110/

nanZor basically boils it down to a few guidelines.

Keep it on the ground. Lifting the wire more than an inch or two decreased the lower angle signal reception greatly.
Calculate the optimal length for one full wavelength of wire at the highest target frequency, say for example, the top of the 20 meter band (14350 kHz). 936/14.350 MHz * 0.9 velocity factor of simple insulated wire = 58.7 feet. You can round up to 60 feet, no big deal since this is broadband. The antenna should have a predictable reception pattern from 1/10th wavelength up to 1 full wavelength. Outside that range, the pattern gets “squirrely”.
Using a 9:1 balun seemed to be a little better than a 4:1 balun at the antenna feedpoint. This gets into things I cannot measure and has to do with rising impedance as a loop gets closer to ground level. I am not sure but I think my Wellbrook amp has a built in 4:1 balun and it seems to work just fine.
Make sure to use an RF Choke at BOTH sides of the feedline coax cable. He was adamant that the loop can get easily unbalanced and allow noise into the antenna and/or feedline and so it must be isolated and the ground allowed to “float” in his words.

Personally, I also wanted to use less wire and happened to have a length of 42 feet of landscape wire which should work well below 5 MHz with the Wellbrook amp engaged. Results were not bad even though on hard frozen ground. Signal levels were down a little compared to the 100 foot of wire. Here are a couple of examples, first one in a fast food parking lot with a grass field next to it and second at the usual Forest Preserve parking lot on a grass field. I made sure that my car blocked the view of the wire so people would not get nervous!

La Voz Missionaria, Brazil:

Voice of Welt from Issoudun France in Kurdish:

These are not necessarily “DX” but definitely good for SWLing. I like the signal strength with the amplifier inline at the antenna feedpoint and I did not have to use an RF Choke at the receiver side as was suggested.

I had a 75 foot long insulated wire and used that at the Forest Preserve parking lot on a couple of different days. Lower frequency signal strength and signal/noise ratio improved a little bit to be noticeable.

US Air Force HFGCS “numbers” station. Remote controlled from Andrews or Grand Forks bases (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Global_Communications_System), there was no way for me to know which of the 6 transmitters it was coming from:

BBC from Tinang Philippines in Korean:

Then, as nanZor suggested in his postings, I purchased a 9:1 balun/RF choke (it has both a balun and an RF choke built-in) from Ham Radio Outlet and put that in place of the Wellbrook amplifier.

I have not worked with it, but it is reported that the Nooelec.com v2 model is cheaper and works just as well – https://swling.com/blog/2019/10/the-nooelec-balun-19-v2/

Examples below with the 42 foot loop and 9:1 balun/choke, no amplifier:

KSDA, Agat Guam in English

WB8U doing a POTA activation of Leavenworth State Fishing Lake

VOLMET weather, Shannon Ireland

HCJB Quito Ecuador, probably in Quechua

As a side note, there is a posting that mentions low-angle DX is better with regions that have better “ground conductivity”, salt water being the best. I have no way of verifying this. See post# 126 by KK5JY Matt.

So, bottom line is that a Loop on Ground can be useful for pleasant SWLing and portable. Best to use it on grass, not asphalt. The loop amplifier is useful to get signal levels up if you have to use a smaller loop size but the signal/noise ratio will suffer due to its smaller aperture. And, warning, the public will find a way to trip over the wire no matter where you set it up (I may try putting the wire around my car if I can park on a grass surface and/or use the gaudiest, brightest neon green or orange wire I can find – they can’t trip over THAT, can they?).

TomL

Thanks, Tom, for sharing your update. Obviously, the LoG is working brilliantly. It’s amazing that you got such clear reception from the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. If you were using a vertical instead, I bet signals would have been buried in the noise.

I can also relate to people tripping over antenna wires. I remember one POTA activation recently (the first activation in this three park run) where I intentionally laid my counterpoise on the ground, off a foot path, in the brush and where I couldn’t imagine anyone ever stepping. Ten minutes into the activation and for no reason, someone walked off the path, into the brush, and it snagged them. Maybe I’m just a Ninja level trapper and never realized it!?

Thanks again for sharing the results of your LoG, Tom. Inspiring!

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Tom builds a portable Loop-On-Ground antenna

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, TomL, who shares the following guest post:

My First Loop-On-Ground antenna

A number of people have mentioned the Loop On Ground (LOG) antenna in the past as a good receive-only antenna. I did some research but could only find a few examples by amateur radio operators.

Matt Roberts (KK5JY) has a good article including some antenna theory and measurements, you can find it here:

http://www.kk5jy.net/LoG/

Someone named Tom (KG3V) has a write up on it but it is a little short on details:

https://kg3v.com/2020/01/04/loop-on-ground-the-simplest-receive-antenna-you-will-ever-build-and-it-works/

Stana Horzepa (WA1LOU) has something similar:

https://tapr.org/loop-on-ground-log-antenna/

I also read somewhere that for transmitting, a LOG antenna is useless as it radiates much of the energy right into the ground! But I didn’t care about that. I needed something for receive I can deploy easily without supports and take down just as easily. As you may recall, my home condo is literally saturated with noise and I cannot null it out. So a wire looped on the ground is supposed to work? You bet it does!

Of course, there are some conditions to meet. There has to be enough flat ground away from people or pets (or lawn mowers!) who would get tangled in the wire on the ground. The wire should be as close to the ground as possible (although I had good results laying the wire on top of cut grass). The loop of wire can vary in circumference from about 20 feet to 150 feet (the shorter length will stay in an omnidirectional pattern higher in frequency but lower in signal pickup and vice-versa for the longer length). The wire needs to be insulated. That’s about it!

So, off to the hardware store to buy a cheap spool of 100 foot 18 gauge speaker wire. But, the articles mention using a balun and they all made their own. I did not feel like doing that (I am not that good at making things from scratch) and I did not want to spend money ordering one. More reading somewhere informed me that my existing Wellbrook Medium Aperture loop amplifier has a built-in balun at the antenna side of the device. Hallelujah!

I bundled together the wire, Wellbrook parts and battery supply, small laptop and Airspy HF+ to my favorite Lake Nelson Forest Preserve. The shelter there is little used and is adjacent to the prairie with cut grass. It did take a good 15 minutes to lay out the 100 feet of wire on the ground while trying to keep it as flat as possible. And I did not have enough space for a circle, so I ended up with an oblong shape. The long sides are facing directly north-south, so in theory (I think) this gives me an oblong shaped reception pattern east-west. The photo shows half of the wire laying on the grass.

I ended up with this setup on a picnic table at the rear end of the shelter. The coax wire goes from the Wellbrook amp into its power module, then to a Cross Country Wireless preselector, then to the Apirspy HF+ and laptop.

I was really impressed by the signal strength of the usual suspects like Radio Nacional da Amazonia. I could see that the Wellbrook amp was boosting signals across the board with only a little extra noise.

I use the preselector to try to keep the Airspy radio from overloading, especially mediumwave broadcast signals which can sound like a small amount of extra “hash” type noise in the background. I have since added into the accessory chain an old Kiwa Electronics BCB filter that does a great job of knocking down the frequencies below 2 MHz.

I have also since added a water resistant box to enclose the Wellbrook amp to keep it safe from getting stepped on or too wet.

Also, a couple of weeks later I was able to go to a campgound and try out 60 feet of wire but the result was noisier since I was surrounded by RV vehicles in a crowded campsite. It was not horrible and I was able to listen to some good radio stations but location can matter with any antenna.

I hope you like the recordings below. Because of some serious health issues this summer, these May 31 2020 recordings & report are just being published now (I am recovering slowly but surely!). My small laptop is under-powered, so I was only able to record MP3 files one at a time. It kept me busy as I went from one frequency to the next and kept recording anything I heard. I was able to hear a couple of stations I never heard before and that is a success in my book.

It remains to be seen if this antenna is as good as my 19 foot vertical antenna attached to the top of the car roof, especially low-angle DX signals. Maybe you will have the chance to experiment as well and share your experience, too. Now, will a small loop-on-ground antenna around my car parked late at night at a far corner of the grocery store work OK??? I will have to try it!

Recordings (crank up the volume if it is too weak):

22:00 UTC, Radio Saudi (Arabic) 11915 kHz

22:04 UTC, KDSA Adventist Radio (Indonesian) 11955 kHz

22:14 UTC, KDSA Adventist Radio (English) 12040 kHz

22:20 UTC, Voice of Korea (Japanese) 11865 kHz

22:23 UTC, Yemen Radio (heavily jammed) 11860 kHz

22:35 UTC, Radio Brazil Central (Portuguese) 11815 kHz

22:50 UTC, WWV booming in 10000 kHz

23:11 UTC, UnKnown (might be FEBC) 9795 kHz

23:15 UTC, China Radio Int’l (Spanish teaching Chinese, from Kashi) 9800 kHz

23:17 UTC, China Radio Int’l Business Radio (from Xianyang) 9820 kHz

23:19 UTC, China Radio Int’l (Chinese from Urumqi) 9865 kHz

23:21 UTC, Voice of Korea (Korean) 9875 kHz

23:23 UTC, Maybe Radio Taiwan without jamming from CNR 9900 kHz

23:34 UTC, China Radio Int’l (Chinese from Bamako Mali) 7295 kHz

23:43 UTC, Radio Nacional da Amazonia 6180 kHz (& 11780 kHz around 40 seconds)

23:50 UTC, MAYBE China PBS from Xinjiang in Kazakh (nothing else listed on schedules) 6015 kHz

23:56 UTC, Radio Mali (French announcer humming to music and acting crazy) 5995 kHz

00:07 UTC, Radio Rebelde (Spanish w/clear signal, Bauta, Cuba) 5025 kHz

00:15 UTC, 75 meter Amateur Radio 3913 kHz (LSB)

00:27 UTC, CHU Ottawa 3330 kHz

00:30 UTC, XEPPM Radio Educacion (Spanish Mexico City) 6185 kHz

This is brilliant Tom! Thank you for sharing.

Our antenna guru contributor, Grayhat, has been encouraging me (understatement!) to build a Loop-On-Ground antenna but I haven’t done this yet because, at home, our driveway would interfere with its deployment. That and I have no RFI to speak of in my rural/remote home so my skyloop antenna is tough to beat. But having one available for portable use would make a lot of sense. I’m going to put this on my 2021 project list!

Post Readers: Do you use a LoG antenna at home or in the field? Please comment!

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BELKA-DX: A Pocket-Sized Radio for Pocket Change

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Well, not pocket change for most people, but I couldn’t pass up a clever headline!

I want to alert SWLing Post readers to a lower cost option for the new BELKA-DX than the Mobimax source: the ecommerce web site of Alex Buevky (EU1ME) who designed the radio.

In early February I bought the original BELKA DSP from the designer’s site, for a total of $117 USD. It arrived safely in 10 days to my Washington State address, with free tracked shipping included.

Yesterday I ordered the new BELKA-DX from the same web site, and the grand total was 340 BYN, or in US Dollars, $128, tracked shipping included.

If I had ordered from Mobimax, the total would have been 176.91 Euro, or $205.76 USD. That price includes FedEx shipping, the only available option to the USA.

Purchasing from the BELKA-DX designer’s web site in Belarus saved me nearly $78, and I’m confident I’ll receive this new model in about a week and a half as before (hopefully no COVID-19 related delays).

I had no issues this time or previously with my payment being “flagged” for security concerns. I used my PayPal VISA card and the transaction completed without issues.

For more information on this tiny powerhouse receiver, see Georges Ringotte’s (F6DFZ) brief review here on the SWLing Post.

Guy Atkins is a Sr. Graphic Designer for T-Mobile and lives near Seattle, Washington. He’s a regular contributor to the SWLing Post.

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Proper Radio Prepping: Keep a kit that is always ready to hit the field!

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My Red Oxx Micro Manager packed with a full radio field kit

Yesterday, my family packed a picnic lunch and took a drive through Madison County, North Carolina. It was an impromptu trip. Weather was forecast to be pretty miserable that afternoon, but we took the risk because we all wanted to get out of the house for a bit.

Although that morning I had no intention of performing a Parks On The Air (POTA) activation, my family was supportive of fitting in a little radio-activity, so I jumped on the opportunity!

A quick glance at the POTA map and I determined that the Sandy Mush State Game Land (K-6949) was on our travel route. Better yet, the timing worked out to be ideal for a lunch picnic and before most of the rain would move into the area.

Ready for radio adventure

I had no time to prepare, but that didn’t matter because I always have a radio kit packed, fully-charged, and ready for the field.

My Red Oxx Micro Manager EDC pack (mine is an early version without pleated side pockets) holds an Elecraft KX2 field and antenna kit with room to spare (see photo at top of page).

The Micro Manager pack easily accommodates the entire kit

This 20 year old blue stuff sack is dedicated to antenna-hanging. It holds a reel of fishing line and a weight that I use to hang my end-fed antenna in a tree or on my Jackite telescoping fiberglass pole. The sack also accommodates a 10′ coax cable.

The Elecraft KX2 transceiver, EFT Trail-Friendly Antenna, hand mic, CW paddles, C.Crane earphones, and wide variety of connectors and cables all fit in this padded Lowe Pro pack:

The advantage to having a simple, organized radio kit at the ready is that everything inside has its own dedicated space, so there’s no digging or hunting for items when I’m ready to set up and get on the air.

This level of organization also makes it easy to visually inspect the kit–missing items stand out.

Yesterday I parked our car at one of the Sandy Mush Game Land parking areas, deployed my field antenna, and was on the air in a matter of seven minutes at the most.

Technically, this should read “Activator” parking area! (A questionable inside joke for POTA folks!)

We planned for heavy rain showers, so I fed the antenna line through the back of my car so that I could operate from the passenger seat up front.

I also brought my Heil Proset – K2 Boom Headset which not only produces better transmitted audio than the KX2 hand mic, but it frees up my hands to log stations with ease. This is especially important when operating in the front seat of a car!

The great thing about the KX2 is that it’s so compact, it can sit on my clipboard as I operate the radio (although typically I have an elastic strap securing it better). Since all of the KX2 controls are top-mounted, it makes operation a breeze even in winter weather while wearing gloves.

Since I routinely use the KX2 for shortwave radio broadcast listening as well, I know I always have a radio “locked and loaded” and ready to hit the air. My 40/20/10 meter band end-fed antenna works well for the broadcast bands, as long as there is no strong local radio interference (RFI). When I’m faced with noisy conditions, I pack a mag loop antenna as well.

What’s in your radio go-kit?

Having a radio kit stocked and ready to go on a moment’s notice gives me a great sense of security, and not just for recreational ham and shortwave radio listening reasons.

Sometimes I travel in remote areas by car where I’m more than an hour away from the nearest town and where there is no mobile phone coverage.

If my car breaks down, I know I can always deploy my radio kit and get help from the ham radio community in a pinch. Herein lies the power of HF radio!

If you haven’t built a radio go-kit, I’d highly recommend doing so. Although I’m a bit of a pack geek, keep in mind that you don’t need to purchase special packs or bags for the job. Use what you already have first.

I’m plotting a detailed post about the anatomy of an HF radio field kit. In the meantime, I’m very curious how many of you in the SWLing Post community also have a radio kit at the ready–one based on a transceiver or receiver. Please comment!

Better yet, feel free to send me details and photos about your kit and I’ll share them here on the Post!