Parks on the Air, Summits on the Air are gaining in popularity. POTA membership, activations and QSO numbers are increasing rapidly each month. With that more hams and the ham curious are looking at getting into this fun aspect of the hobby.
Why to Start on a Budget
With all things new, getting started in portable radio requires some new gear. Sometimes even for the established, experienced ham who may have a well equipped ham shack.
Buying gear for something new can present a bit of a conundrum. Do you want to spend potentially a lot of money on something you're not sure if you will do enough to justify the cost? Even if you joined a friend a few times on his POTA activations, one can find it a challenge to invest into a brand new hobby. On the flip side, if one goes too cheap with their initial entry, he may have a bad time due to the gear.
Two items that may need to be purchased or made for portable radio would be a power source and a portable antenna.
An established ham may not want to take down their dipole they spent so much time tuning just right and hanging in the trees in the back yard.
If you need an AC outlet, you are going to drastically limit the park locations you can operate from.
So with that in mind, pretty much everyone starting into portable radio needs to look into a battery and an easy to deploy antenna. Fortunately, there are some inexpensive entry points for both.
PART ONE: The Antenna
There are some pretty amazing antennas one can purchase from a host of providers that is made with portable operations as their intended use. Plus quite a few in kit form as well for the builders out there.
HQD Speaker Wire Antenna
A very inexpensive option that is easy enough for a guy like me to build and works great, is the HQD Speaker Wire Antenna. While Jerry KG6HQD may not have truly invented the HQD Speaker Wire Antenna, it is fun to call it that for no other reason than annoying the QRZombie types.
I discovered Jerry's YouTube channel by accident years ago when researching a potential location for a backpacking trip. He was the catalyst for transforming me from someone who that portable radio, particularly SOTA was "something that sounded like fun" into "something I need to do."
In the vast majority of Jerry's SOTA activation videos that I binged watch, on multiple occasions, he used his simple speaker wire dipole antenna with great results. After watching his video showing just how simple one and inexpensive one is to make, I made one for my first portable HF antenna.
I used the HQD Speaker Wire Antenna I made in less than 20 minutes with some speaker wire I've had lying around for years and a connector I bought off of Amazon. I used this antenna exclusively with my FT-891 for probably my first dozen or so POTA activations. I carry it with me for a spare and will still occasionally used it depending on the surroundings I have to work with, or simple if I'm in the mood.
Below is Jerry's video showing how to make "his" world famous antenna.
Wire Dipole Antennas
There are other options for home-brewing your own dipole antenna that are relatively simple to do. Most will require some type of matching component that many hams might have a spare laying around their shack, or a new ham could pick up cheaply to get started.
In 2021 I met up with some friends from an area ARES group to play a little POTA. The weekend we picked so happened to also be a busy contest weekend. The 20 and 40 meter bands were both packed shoulder to shoulder with contesters. So, it was decided to build a dipole tuned for 17 meters.
The antenna made from fencing wire worked great. My friend activated his very first POTA with contacts from Alaska to Puerto Rico.
Being new to POTA, my friend brought with what he had laying around his garage for power. A spare 12 volt car battery. We'll get more into the topic of power in the field in another post in this series.
EFHW Antenna Kits
If you have some basic soldering skills and you like winding toroids, or you want to get into soldering and winding toroids, there are many affordable kits for end fed half wave (EFHW) wire antennas out there. They are a great option for a compact lightweight easy to deploy resonant antenna.
The one that interests me the most is a kit made by Adam K6ARK. Adam sell a very well designed kit that he clearly put a lot of work in developing. As a SOTA enthusiast, Adam knows what works and what doesn't when it comes to his kit for portable radio.
I have purchased two of his kits from his Amazon store. I just need to get a little better with my soldering skills before I dive into the builds. I think if you have a basic level of soldering skill you'll find this build a fun project.
Here is an Amazon link to the option I purchased. Adam has a few different options available as well.
