I’m often asked if I ever charge my LiFePo4 batteries in the field via solar energy.
Truth is, I’m a big fan of solar, but I’m rarely in the field long enough to need to recharge my batteries via solar when performing SOTA and POTA field activations. It’s easier to charge them at home in advance (often via the solar system at our QTH).
In fact, one of my 3 Ah LiFePo4 Bioenno batteries can easily take me though 3-5 activations or possibly more, depending on the length of the activation and the rig I’m using.
Photo by K4TLI
For longer forays into the field, however, I love going solar.
Indeed, every few years, my family will stay in an off-grid cabin on Prince Edward Island (Canada) for up to 6 weeks at a time. Solar is the only practical way to stay on the air that length of time.
Of course, I also like having a solar option, when doing proper primitive/off-grid tent camping.
In the past, I’ve used a very simple portable solar charging system based on a variety of rigid and folding panels, a Micro M+ charge controller, and sealed lead acid batteries. The batteries are of course heavy, but they work brilliantly for fixed operations.
These days, I’m fully invested in LiFePo4 batteries and my Micro M+ charge controller is not really designed to pair with the BMS (battery management system) in my Bioenno packs.
I contacted Buddipole with a few questions about the unit and to find out when they would be in stock again (at the time, they were on back-order and indeed they are at time posting this report).
As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m starting to sort out the gear I’ll take on a long road trip this summer. I still haven’t quite decided which radio will accompany my Elecraft KX2, but the lab599 Discovery TX-500 is on my very short list.
I pulled the TX-500 yesterday to do a firmware update and found my logbook for an activation I made on February 16, 2022. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember writing the field report for that activation.
I checked my YouTube channel and, sure enough, buried at the bottom of my video list was the activation video marked as “unlisted.”
That bit of time between mid-February and mid-March was crazy for me. I was in isolation for a week (thanks Covid) and had a very hectic family schedule. I accumulated a small backlog of videos then and this one was lost simply lost in the shuffle.
Here’s the report and video from that activation:
Clear Creek Trail
It was Wednesday, February 16, 2022, and I was driving to my parents’ house to help them with a few projects. I had enough time to make a little detour to the Clear Creek Access of South Mountains State Park (K02753) and had two things in mind: a good hike and trailside activation.
The weather? Man oh man was it was fickle.
On the interstate, I got caught in a proper downpour and traffic slowed to a crawl.
I thought about throwing in the towel then, but I made a promise to myself that I would continue driving to the park if it wasn’t raining when I approached the park exit on the interstate.
When I was first getting into Ham radio a couple years ago, I ran across a slide presentation done by Fred KT5X on “Ultra-lyte” QRP. In it, Fred has pictures of a trail running hydration vest that contains a complete SOTA station, water, snacks and a jacket. I was sold on the idea, and made it my goal to start making my own ultralight setup.
As time went on, I really got into the ultralight approach to SOTA, taking every opportunity to reduce weight and shrink my pack down. I enjoy some trail running, mountain biking and combining SOTA/POTA with either is the ultimate combo of adventure and ham radio. Continue reading Matt’s “Ultra-Lyte” Hydration Vest QRP Field Kit→
[…]I just wanted to give you a quick update on my 1st SOTA activation (May 18th). We spent a few days in the south of France with the extended family. From the garden of the house we rented we were constantly looking towards a beautiful mountain front and it turned out to be SOTA summit FR/CR-205 (726m, 2382ft). So I decided to try and activate it since we had enough people around who offered to watch out for our kids.
Next morning: 6am my dear XYL and I started our ascent.
What a wonderful scenery with morning mist covering most of the mountain landscape and the sun in perfect shape for an early hike.
No pricing/availability mentioned, but we do learn a few more details from their page.
Features:
The Xiegu G106 is a 5W SDR transceiver using 16bit-CODEC sampling
SSB, CW, AM modes are supported along with wide FM reception (for the FM broadcast band)
General coverage receiver
Three selectable CW bandwidths
Digital modes when connected to a computer with the Xiegu DE-19 interface
Specifications
Receiver frequency range: 0.55~30MHz and 88~108MHz (WFM)
Transmitting frequency:
3.5~3.9MHz
7.0~7.2MHz [I assume this is incorrect]
10.1~10.15MHz
14.0~14.35MHz
18.068~18.168MHz
21.0~21.45MHz
24.89~24.99MHz
28.0~29.7MHz
Receiver sensitivity:
CW: 0.25uV @10dB S/N
SSB: 0.5uV @10dB S/N
AM: 10uV @10dB S/N
Frequency stability: ±1.5ppm within 30min after power on @25°C: 1ppm/hour
Transmitting power: ≥5W @13.8V DC
Transmitting spurious suppression: ≥50dB
Audio output power: 0.3W
Operating voltage: 9~15V DC
Standby current: 0.37A @Max
Transmitting current: 2.8A @Max
Dimensions: 120*40*135 (mm)
Weight: about 720g (only host)
Radioddity notes: “The shoulder strap [above] is for display only. Final equipped accessories not decided yet.”
My G106 takeaways?
Based on Xiegu’s previous offerings, I would have to assume the G106 could be in production within a few months (supply chains/C-19 pending). It’ll likely be released with basic firmware and updated with time. It’ll be price competitive for sure.
I would hope that perhaps they’ve worked on the audio characteristics and noise floor of the G106. Previous Xiegu products have mediocre audio characteristics and a higher noise floor than my other transceivers. Let’s also hope the front end is more robust than the X6100.
At 0.37 Amps, current drain in standby/receive is a tad on the high side for late model QRP portable radios. Still, quite respectable for a field radio.
It doesn’t appear the G106 has an internal tuner, nor an internal battery unless they’ve simply omitted this from the features list.
It also doesn’t mention CW and/or voice message memory keying which I consider to be so valuable for park and summit activators. If history is an indicator, I suppose they could add this later in firmware updates.
Also, the Radioddity announcement mentions that the G106 covers “[t]ransmission and reception of all amateur frequency bands within 3.8~29.7MHz.” Yet in the specifications, they fail to list the 60M band and the 40M band is noted as 7-7.2 MHz. I assume the 40M band range is simply a typo–I can’t imagine it would actually stop at 7.2 MHz. I also imagine they may have simply omitted the 60M band channels. RX seems to dip as low as 0.5 MHz, thus covering most of the mediumwave broadcast band.
Truth is, these are early days for the G106 and we may learn that it has more features than listed here on Radioddity’s page.
If it does indeed lack an internal ATU and/or internal battery, I assume the price point would be well below that of the X5105 and X6100; my (complete and total) guess would be somewhere between $300-400 US.
I’ll post more info about the G106 as we learn more. I’ll also try to update and correct this post if I learned some of these details are incorrect.
Although I live in the mountains of North Carolina and am surrounded by SOTA summits, it’s much easier for me to activate a park rather than a summit.
Parks can be quite easy: find the park on a map, drive through their main entrance, find a good picnic table to set up, and next thing you know you’re on the air! Of course, wildlife management areas and game lands can be more tricky, but typically you can drive to the activation site.
Summits–speaking as someone who activates in North Carolina–take much more planning. If it’s a new-to-me summit, I typically need to:
find the GPS coordinates of the true summit
map out the drive to the trail head
read through previous activation notes (if they exist) to find out
what type of antenna/gear I might pack
and any notes I might need to find the trail or bushwhack to the true summit (quite often published, well-worn trails don’t lead to the actual summit)
look up the trail map and make sure I have a paper and/or electronic copy
pack all needed gear for the hike, activation, and emergencies
sort out the time it will take to travel to the site, hike the full trail to the summit, activate, and return home
If you ask most any SOTA activator, they’ll tell you that the planning is part of the fun.
It really is.
One summit I’ve had on my activation list for ages is Craggy Dome (W4C/CM-007). Out of the higher summits in this region, it’s one of the easier ones for me to reach from the QTH. In fact, as with Lane Pinnacle, I could simply hike from my house directly to the summit (although one way to Craggy might take the better part of a day). The trailhead is about a 50 minute drive, and the hike about 30 minutes.
SOTA notes and All Trails indicated that Craggy Dome’s trail isn’t always easy to follow and that it’s steep and slippery.
Craggy has been activated loads of times, though, so I wasn’t concerned at all.
Living here and knowing how much brush there was on the manway to the summit, I knew that Craggy would be a pretty easy summit if I could activate it after the parkway re-opened for the spring and before the mountain “greened-up”; about a five week window.
Meeting Bruce
My schedule opened up for an activation of Craggy Dome on the morning of April 21, 2022 and I was very much looking forward to it.
I wouldn’t be alone on this hike either. Bruce (KO4ZRN), a newly-minted ham, contacted me and asked if he could join me on a hike and simply be an observer during a SOTA activation.
After seeing your YouTube channel, I decided to try my hand at POTA operations. There are at least three state parks on the POTA list nearby. I am trying to increase my CW speed, because CW would be a bit more efficient for operations.
[…]I have gotten an Xiegu X6100. The biggest reason was it is Linux based, which I am familiar. It is a nice size also has nice features. With an external battery (car jump starter) and a decent antenna, it should be able to make contacts.
My unit has the version 1.1.5 soft/firmware. I have found the Bluetooth and WIFI connectivity be lacking a few software components. I have been able to make Bluetooth connections to a keyboard and speaker, one at a time. However, there is no data connection to the just of the software.
So, one hears no sound and pressing a key generates no data. The X6100 has the potential to be a very capable modern transceiver. I got it through Radioddity.
I have working with the support group, who are good. Hopefully, the next software update will improve things.
What I found that worked and was a help was a mouse/trackball with OTG (on the go) cable connected to the USB Host port.
One was able to select the menu/submenu items.
The best improvement was Memory Editing the submenu Tag item. Using a trackball to update the Tag information via the popup screen keyboard was very easy and quick. Using a mouse/trackball with X6100 might be a good video.
Thank you for the tip, Greg! I will have to give this a go. I’m curious if other readers have explored using a mouse/trackball with the X6100 as well.
One of the most appealing things about the Elecraft K4 interface (another Linux-based transceiver, I believe) is that you can connect a mouse and have full control of the radio. This made selecting items so much easier than using a finger to do the same on the touch screen.
As I mentioned in a previous post, instead of going to Hamvention this year, I went on a POTA expedition with my buddy Eric (WD8RIF) and his son Miles (KD8KNC) in West Virginia.
Just a random roadside waterfall.
In short? It was a brilliant trip!
Amazing WV
The New River Gorge
West Virginia is such a beautiful state and it’s absolutely chock-full of state and national parks. Eric and I were left scratching our heads as to why there are so few activations in many of West Virginia’s most accessible parks.
The iconic New River Bridge
In fact, though it’s still relatively early in the season, we found the parks to be rather busy with tourists from across the globe.
We set up camp at Babcock State Park and used it as our home base to activate numerous parks in the area. In the late evenings we activated Babcock from the comfort of our campsite.
The Grist Mill at Babcock State Park.
I didn’t bring Hazel on this trip, but Eric brought his little dog, Theo– A.K.A “The Great Warg”–who was our little POTA mascot and certainly our ambassador at each site.
The Great Warg enjoying a little ice cream at Dixie’s Drive-In in Anstead, WV.
Theo attracted a lot of attention from pretty much anyone and everyone. That little guy never meets a stranger.
On a mission
Our goal wasn’t to activate as many parks as possible, rather it was to enjoy camping, sightseeing, and simply hanging out together during our activations.
Wow–what a success!
I stole Eric’s K1 field kit and used it to activate Hawk’s Nest State Park. Only made me wish I’d never have sold my K1 some 10 years ago!
If you’ve been on the air the past few days, you’ll have noticed that band conditions have been pretty rough and unstable at times.
We met this confident little guy while hiking at Hawk’s Nest SP.
We had to allocate more time than normal to work our ten contacts needed for a valid park activation.
That was perfectly fine, though, because the scenery at our activation sites was simply spectacular. I just hope the rushing waters didn’t create too much QRN in my videos!
Gauley River at the Summersville Hydroelectric Project
We also learned early on that (since we had no band pass filters in tow) it was best that we work non-harmonically-related bands simultaneously and, of course, separate our stations as far apart as reasonable at each site. When Eric was on 40 or 20 meters, I was on 30 and 17 and vice versa. It worked out pretty well.
Time management…
Now that I’m back at the QTH, I’ll pull the videos from my camera then process and upload them. I’m currently a good four weeks behind on field reports.
Thurmond Depot
If you’ve tried to contact me recently, you’ll notice I’m also at least two or more weeks behind on email as well. Unfortunately, there’s simply not enough time in the day and I need to sort out a better way to handle questions from readers and subscribers. I love answering emails and attempt to reply to each and every one, but the amount of time it takes to manage email is actually now taking a significant bite out of my content creation time. Between QRPer.com and the SWLing Post, I receive an average of 25-40 messages per day from readers, many of which are new to the site. Those stack up rapidly when I’m traveling or out and about doing activations.
I receive questions about choosing gear, asking about operating practices, and general advice on a variety of radio topics. They’re all great questions, but I feel like I’m a bit of a bottleneck in terms of delivering answers.
I might build a discussion board or create an email group where people can find community support. I certainly welcome your thoughts and comments on this.
I need to take action soon, because I’ve got a lot of travels planned this summer and will be off-grid for days at a time.
If I’m being perfectly honest, another reason why I didn’t attend Hamvention this year is because I knew it would only add to my work and correspondence load right before nearly two months of planned travels.
Our POTA camping expedition was a more relaxing option than Hamvention for 2022. (You can bet I’ll be at the 2023 Hamvention, though!)
Sharing the journey
Indeed, this trip reminded me why I do what I do here: I love to share the radio journey.
On that note, I’ve been absolutely overwhelmed with kind comments from readers and subscribers. It’s humbling and I’m most grateful to each and every one of you. Thank you so much! Sharing the radio journey is indeed my main focus here on QRPer.com and on my YouTube channel. Sharing my journey and yours via the many excellent guest posts I’ve received.
I’ll sort out a way to manage correspondence in due time and, in the meantime, I appreciate your understanding.
Thanks for reading this post and many thanks to Eric and Miles for an amazing trip exploring the rivers and mountains of West Virginia! I can’t wait to do this again.
Indeed, this trip has me absolutely energized about the activations I’m plotting in Canada this summer. Stay tuned!
Since then, I’ve been getting a few updates from my friend as, I assume, Xiegu releases preliminary info.
This is the latest illustration (click to enlarge):
You can see Xiegu is certainly eyeing the park and summit activators out there.
They’re also touting digital mode operation and I’ll have to assume this means the radio has an internal sound card which would certainly simplify a field-portable digi mode kit.
I was originally told that the G106 had six bands, but this image implies 80-10 meters including the WARC bands. We’ll have to verify this once the production marketing information is released. Since this is the 2022 Hamvention weekend, we could be learning more int he next couple of days.
I’m a pretty organized field radio guy if I do say so myself.
In all of the hundreds of field activations I’ve attempted since the days of the National Parks On The Air (NPOTA) program, I’ve only arrived on site two or three times and discovered I was missing a key component of my field kit. Out of those times, only once do I remember that the missing component prevented my activation (it was hard to power my radio without a battery and power cable). The other times, I was able to improvise.
or one that’s modular, where component families (transceiver, antenna, power, etc) are in their own packs and can be moved from pack to pack.
I always prefer having dedicated field kits, but they’re pricey because they require a dedicated antenna, battery, radio, key/mic, earphones, pack, connectors, and sometimes even their own throw line.
I assemble modular kits around a particular radio and antenna system prior to leaving the QTH to go on an activation. I have a method for doing this which prevents me from leaving stuff behind.
Save this time…
On Thursday, April 7, 2022, before leaving the house for a quick overnight trip, I grabbed my SOTA pack and disconnected my Elecraft KX3 from the KXPA100 amp in the shack.
My pre-side rails KX3 in the shack.
My KX3 is used a lot in the shack–along with the Mission RGO One and Ten-Tec Argonaut V–it’s one of my staple rigs at the QTH. I didn’t think I would have time to complete an activation on this quick trip, but if I did, I wanted to use the KX3. I also grabbed one of my pouches that contained a 12V battery, distribution panel, and power cord.
Also inside the pack was my Elecraft KX2 kit. It was in there from a previous activation, so I just left it in the bag.
When a window of opportunity for a quick activation opened on Friday, April 8, 2022, I grabbed it. I didn’t have time to go far afield, so I chose to activate the closest park to where I was running errands that day.
Fort Dobbs State Historic Site (K-6839)
As I was driving to the site on I-40, it dawned on my that I might have forgotten to pack an antenna.
Not a good feeling, but I was only 10 minutes from the park, so there was no turning back.
You see, a couple days beforehand, I did a bit of an antenna inventory at the QTH–I took all of my antennas out of their packs, checked them over carefully for any damage or fault points and made notes.
I normally keep a 20M EFHW antenna in my KX2 field kit, but I remembered that also I removed it during the inventory.
Once I arrived at Fort Dobbs, I opened my SOTA pack and confirmed that I had no antenna. Not a one.
I kept a clear head and realized that if I wanted to complete the activation, I needed to do one of two things:
Search the car in case, somehow, I had a spare antenna floating around in there. Unlikely, but I’d feel like a fool if I aborted an activation with an antenna in the car.
Go to a nearby hardware or dollar store and find some cheap wire. The KX3 has a brilliant internal ATU to match pretty much any wire I connect to it.
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