On Friday, May 23, 2025, I had a good 90 or so minutes to play radio, and the Blue Ridge Parkway (as always) is the easiest hit for me when running around in the Asheville, NC area.

I was in the western part of Asheville, though, so I needed to find a site to set up. I’d packed my Yaesu FT-818, which is very much a tabletop radio (compared with, say, my Elecraft KX2 or KH1). A picnic table would have been ideal, but there are no sites on the BRP with picnic tables in the western part of town.

I could have driven a bit further to Lake Powhatan, but it would have cut 20 or so minutes out of my activation and I’d rather opt for more time on the air than the convenience of a picnic table.

Fortunately, I packed a secret weapon—one I’d taken to Hamvention weekend and was still in the car…

The Nemo Moonlander Portable Table

There’s a story behind this table.

Back in November 2023, when we were recording the “Holiday Shopping Show” on the Ham Radio Workbench Podcast, my dear friend George (KJ6VU)—who shares a passion for quality gear—suggested that I invest in a Nemo Moonlander portable table [note: QRPer Amazon affiliate link].

I’ll be honest: I had some credit either on Amazon or REI (I can’t remember) and decided to make the purchase based solely on George’s recommendation.

This was a splurge since the Moonlander costs around $150–180 US (!!!), depending on the color variation. When I purchased mine, I believe I paid about $160. In my book, that’s a lot of money for a portable table.

George’s selling point was that it’s the only portable table he’d used that was actually super sturdy and functional. The table surface is strong, the table has two heights (with and without the legs installed), and it folds flat. It’s not super lightweight like some portable table options on the market, but it is adaptable and useful.

When I received the Moonlander, I was very pleased with the design: it was everything George had described. The surface is so strong I could put a heavy object on it and the table wouldn’t buckle. The table, if anything, feels over-engineered. I like that.

Thing is, though, I hardly ever thought about taking this little table out to the field with me with POTA or SOTA in mind. We used it a bit for family picnics, but I tended to default to my smaller portable radios combined with a kneeboard to play radio in the field where there are no picnic tables or benches to set up.

In fact, I believe the first time I used this little table in a field radio outing was this past December (one full year after I’d purchased it) for this Christmas Eve video.

During that outing, I only used the table to hold my coffee and some Christmas cookies. I still used my kneeboard to hold my KX2.

I realized during that outing, though, that the height of the Moonlander table—with the legs installed—was about perfect for the height of my much-loved Helinox backpack chair. With it set up next to the chair, it was a great ergonomic height for me to reach things on the table.

Two months later, in early February, I took the Nemo Moonlander to the field and thought I’d experiment with using it to hold my radio and key. For some reason, I can’t find this field report or video in my archives (I’ll need to check my hard drive once I’m back from my Canada travels). Here’s a photo from that activation:

This activation taught me that the Moonlander is actually incredibly functional and gives me the flexibility to use my larger portables like the TR-45L, Argonaut V or VI, K2, RGO One, or my FT-818 (the subject of this field report) a proper place to operate.

I had not recommended the Nemo Moonlander up to this point on QRPer.com because I felt like it was just too pricey for something that had limited utility for field radio operating. My mind has completely changed on this point, though! Yes, it’s very pricey and, yes, I’m sure there are cheaper third-party knock-offs of this design already, but I’m very pleased with this purchase. I feel like the Moonlander will last me the rest of my days. The folding design is so clever. Check out this from Nemo showing the components and how it can be set up:

In short, I’ve really done a 180 here: the Moonlander—very much an impulse purchase at the time with a touch of buyer’s remorse—has become one of my favorite field accessories.

Back to our field report…

I drove to a site on the Blue Ridge Parkway near the bridge that crosses I-26 where there’s an easy pull-off and parking spot for a few cars. I’ve activated this particular site at least once before.

I walked into the woods perhaps 10 meters and started setting up my table and radio gear.

I was in a bit of pain that day, and I mention this in the video because I was a little concerned I might have difficulty sitting in my hiking chair so close to the ground. The previous evening, when walking to my neighbor’s house on a path in the woods, I slipped on a large white oak trunk. I landed on the right side of my chest on the log. The pain was significant enough earlier the next morning (the day of this activation) I set up an appointment at my doctor’s office and they made a few chest x-rays. Fortunately, it was just bruised ribs. Also fortunately, it didn’t cause me too many problems during this activation—I just had to be careful how I moved about.

I set up the Yaesu FT-818 in short order and deployed my end-fed half-wave antenna knowing that it would give me good coverage sans ATU on the 20 and 40 meter bands.

Band conditions had been so crappy, I wasn’t sure what to expect once I hopped on the air.

Fortunately, it turned out that propagation was pretty solid that day…

Gear

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Radio and Battery System

• • Yaesu FT-818ND with the following options:
    • WINDCAMP 3000mAh LIPO battery for FT-818/817
    • USB-C Rechargeable 9V Li-Ion Batteries
    • WINDCAMP Anderson PowerPole Adapter for FT817/818Yaesu FT-818ND
    • Portable Zero FT-817 Side Rails and Bail
  • Bioenno 3 Ah LiFePo Battery (Model BLF-1203AB)–Note that I used this battery since the internal WinCamp battery needed a charge.

Antenna & Cable Assembly

• Homebrew MW0SAW End-Fed Half-Wave on a SOTAbeams winder
• ABR Industries 25’ RG-316 cable assembly with three in-line ferrites (Use Coupon Code ABR10QRPER for 10% Discount!)

Arborist Throw Line

• Weaver arborist throw line/weight
• Throw line storage bag

Key and Accessories

• BaMaKeY TP-III Ultra-Compact Twin Paddle
• Senrog Bench Block TP-III base
• Tufteln TP-III Magnetic Protective Cover
• Key cable: Cable Matters 2-Pack Gold-Plated Retractable Aux Cable – 2.5 Feet

Other Gear

• NEMO Moonlander Portable Table
• NEMO Resolve 25L Backpack
• Rite In The Rain Top Spiral Notebook
• GraphGear 0.9mm 1000 Automatic Drafting Pencil

Camera and Audio

• DJI OSMO 4 action camera with  Joby Telepod Sport Tripod
• DJI Wireless Microphones

On The Air

I started calling CQ POTA on the 20 meter band and was rewarded with a nice stream of adept POTA hunters calling.

Within 13 minutes, I’d worked the ten stations necessary to validate the activation.

The 20 meter hunters kept calling…

I added 12 more contacts to my logs, equating to a total of 22 logged contacts all within 29 minutes on the air. 20 meters was performing so well, I never moved to 40 meters. In fact, I ran out of time—I needed to call QRT, pack up, and pick up my daughter from her writer’s group!

I will say that 20 meters was very much alive. If you look at my logs and the propagation footprint on the QSO Map below, you’ll see that the band was very much open to the entire continent and into St. Maarten (thank you, PJ7AR!).

QSO Map

Here’s what this five-watt activation looked like when plotted out on a QSO Map. Click on the map image to enlarge.

Activation Video

Here’s my real-time, real-life video of the entire activation.  As with all of my videos, I don’t edit out any parts of the on-air activation time. In addition, I have YouTube monetization turned off, although that doesn’t stop them from inserting ads before and after my videos.

Note that Patreon supporters can watch and even download this video 100% ad-free through Vimeo on my Patreon page:

Click here to view on YouTube.

On the mend

As I write up this field report, I’m in Canada, and it’s a bit over a month after this activation. I’m happy to report that my chest pain from the fall is completely gone at this point. It took a good three weeks for it to properly heal, but I can once again cough and sneeze without doubling over in pain. 🙂

Also, you’re going to see the Moonlander table in a number of upcoming field reports. I brought it with me for our summer travels and have been using it quite a lot both for field radio and for field picnics with the family!

Thank you

Thank you for joining me during this activation in the woods!

I hope you enjoyed the field report and my activation video as much as I enjoyed creating them!

Of course, I’d also like to send a special thanks to those of you who have been supporting the site and channel through Patreon, and the Coffee Fund. While not a requirement, as my content will always be free, I really appreciate the support.

As I mentioned before, the Patreon platform connected to Vimeo makes it possible for me to share videos that are not only 100% ad-free but also downloadable for offline viewing. The Vimeo account also serves as a third backup for my video files.

Thanks for spending part of your day with me! Have a brilliant weekend ahead!

Cheers & 72,
Thomas (K4SWL)

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