I am very big on LiFePO4 battery packs, 4 Genuine A123 cell 2.3 AH ones to be exact. They start out about 14V and provide about 2 AH till they get down to 12V when I stop and switch to another one. This allows full power on the KX3 as the voltage drop is very low even when transmitting at 12 W. I got packs with a balancing connector and charge with a balancing charger.
You also need to consider the weight of a decent feedline, balun and / or counterpoise that drastically effect transmit efficiency. I created a go kit with all that and a headset and an extendable pole for an inverted V support and a hard case for my KX3 that came to about 7 lb. I set that up on a beach in Maui last week with some success, but had good success working a contest from my back yard when the other end were contest stations with good antennas. This is my kit 20M Item Oz Radio With Eneloops 34.4 Hard Case 10.5 Battery with Power Cable 12.4 Headset 6.8 Balun 6 Pole 20 Ft usable 15.7 Antenna wire on looms 2.9 Extra Antenna Wire for 20M 1.3 Feed (300 ohm ladr) on loom 12.4 Base measuring rope on loom 5 Total Oz 107.4 Total Lb 6.71 I added a 2 lb netbook to all this for logging. I hate dupe sheets. Mark On Apr 26, 2013 9:40 AM, "Wayne Burdick" <n...@elecraft.com> wrote: > > Hi all, > > This year I'm going to break with tradition and *not* drag tons of gear to my > field-day site. I'm going minimal….4 pounds max of radio gear. This will > allow me to put more emphasis on food, drink, and enjoying time with my son > (now almost 9). If anyone else is up for "FD4#", let me know. I'd like to > compare notes on equipment, especially antennas, battery packs, and logging. > > 4 pounds (or so) is not an arbitrary number. This allows for: > > - a KX3 with internal ATU and attached paddle > - mic and headphones > - external Li battery, plus 8 internal AA batteries in the rig as a backup > - two 50' (roughly) lengths of antenna wire, adapters, and a couple of 1-oz > weights to get one wire into a tree > - paper log and dupe sheets (maybe…more on this below) > - soft carrying case for all of the above (in my case, a Think Tank "Strobe > Stuff" bag) > > I still expect to be reasonably competitive in the 1B-battery category even > with this lightweight station. I hope to operate on 80-6 meters in CW, SSB, > and digital modes (RTTY using the CW paddle and the KX3's text decode > function). > > There are two items I'm still working on: > > 1. External battery > > I need something that will fit into the bottom of the Strobe Stuff bag. It > should supply at least 11 V, and I'd prefer 4 to 5 AH, though I could get by > with 3 AH and switch to the internal AAs later if necessary. Has any > consensus formed about specific Li battery packs in this class? Ideal max > size would be 1x3x2.5" (HWD). > > 2. Logging > > I actually like paper logging in the field. It's kind of a Zen thing, > checking dupe sheets manually (Griffin is old enough to help with this, too). > But are there any good FD apps for the iPhone? I need the iPhone anyway so it > doesn't count towards the station weight total. If there's an app that's easy > to use for this, I'd love to try it. Heck, I'd even pay for it. > > Wayne > N6KR > > > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
