PROJECT: Travel Case

CQ CQ CQ N8GB/Portable Calling CQ and Listening!

First Operation.

WV0CQ (now N8GB) Operating Portable from the High School Football Field

Field operations, portable operations, “bugging out”, Field Day, whatever you want to call it, is a huge amount of fun. Over the last few years, I have thoroughly enjoyed ARRL Field Day and out little mini-expeditions within WV. We throw just about anything you can think of into our vehicles and go operate portable for 24 hours. Over these few years, I’ve been honing down my equipment list and practicing my techniques, including on-air ops, as well as equipment setup. Of course, I am a huge fan of the Yaesu 857d radio. There may be others out there just like it from different manufacturers, however, I was imprinted with “Yaesu” early on during my enlistment in the U.S. Navy. So, I’ve kinda hung with it over the years.

A couple of years ago, a friend, KD8VYO – Roy, loaned me his “Super Antenna” to take and use while I went on vacation. I had researched this antenna prior to leaving and wanted to buy one, but I didn’t want to spend the money at that time. Roy however, took my research, did his own and went ahead and made the purchase. So, I took it with me to /p4 land and used it a few times from Alabama. I was hooked. It’s so easy to setup, when broken down, it’s compact and very portable. I knew I had to have one. Well, this month marks my 11th year anniversary of being married to one of the most awesome ladies I’ve ever known. I guess she’s finally embraced my Amateur Radio habit and since the 11th Anniversary’s “traditional” gift is “steel” and there’s some “steel” in the Super Antenna, I was fortunate enough that she ordered one for me.

Last night, July 11 2018, I took the below mentioned portable rig in the yellow case, along with the Super Antenna and setup portable at the local high school. I used the stands at the football field to mount the antenna. I figured the giant piece of aluminum would make an excellent ground-plane. I wasn’t let down. I made 23 contacts in less than one hour, even working a slight pile-up for a period of time. The adjacent baseball field lights were turned on for a late evening game, so they began producing an enormous amount of noise, otherwise, I would have stuck around until my battery died in my rig. I made contacts in Canada and throughout the mid-west, along with North Carolina, and several New England States. It worked like a charm. Took less than 10 mins to deploy and after carefully aligning the SWR ruler to the antenna, I had a good match the very first time I set it up. I had a great evening operating radio in the field and it only took about 1.5 hours from start to finish to talk up and down the eastern sea board.

I am planning on going on vacation back to /p4 land soon. When I do, the portable rig with the Super Antenna will be going with me. I’ll try to work a little radio each day, when doing so doesn’t conflict with my primary mission, which is to catch as many fish as possible. There’s a good chance that I may have the opportunity to operate /mm as well, as a friend is bringing his boat to meet up with me for a couple of days. If I have the opportunity, I can guarantee you, I’ll be operating radio from the Gulf of Mexico.

The Build.

I love the concept of operating portable. Once you’re setup and ready to roll, it’s not really difficult. Getting setup where you have everything you need and want, in a compact and portable rig, is the project, the fun and it’s a great hobby-within-a-hobby.

Some call these “go cases”. I prefer “portable case” because I actually go out and use mine. I use it throughout the year, including field day. We used my previous case on our Spruce Knob Mini Expedition. This new case, I hope, will make life just a tad easier.

In my Archived Projects, please refer to the “Exoskeleton Case” and the military communications case. While this “worked”, it was heavy. The shoulder strap, if you hiked for any length of time, cut into your shoulder. The equipment was of course, not seriously heavy, but it was heavy enough to let you know it was there. Also, when traveling through airports and passing through security, it wasn’t the greatest idea in the world to be carrying a military style equipment bag loaded with electronics. (LOL?) I was able to obtain a free reach-around from TSA and a full body pat-down. I didn’t get a body cavity search, but I was of course willing to try. At any rate, I decided that what I needed was something less-than-military, rugged, with wheels.

So, I found an “equipment case”, standard “carry on” size, with wheels and a telescoping tote handle. I didn’t need it to be padded. I thought about getting something in standard black, but I also wanted to make sure I could see it for various reasons, at distance. So, I chose the Seahorse Protective Equipment Cases SE830 Carry On Case in High Visibility Yellow. This is a standard color for engineering equipment, so I don’t believe it will raise eyebrows based entirely on the color. I will be able to see this case from distance, probably for miles in open areas. It is somewhat water resistant, but I knew that I would need to circumvent this resistance to pass through cables and/or mount the bracketing. 

Seahorse Protective Equipment Cases SE830 Carry On Case

As you can see from these first three images, this case is just the right size for my purposes, which are to house my FT857d, a LDG Tuner and a LiFEPO battery.

One of my secondary objectives, for the time being, was for the case to be capable of fitting in the same space of my truck that I currently keep the 857d and the tuner, directly behind the center-console of the truck, behind the seat. I didn’t measure the space, I just assumed it would fit because there’s ample room in that area and I was right….

All that’s left is to put in a pass-through rubber grommet for the cabling. I’ll get to that later today.

Now, for the build.

I purchased the unit about 2 months ago and I finally got around to doing the build this weekend. All-in-all, I have about 3-4 hours of work in this build. I used aluminum 1/2″ angle (1/16th thick), aluminum 1/2″ flat bar (1/16th thick) and rivets (5/16th and 1/8th) to put everything together.

Luckily, once I opened up the case for the first time, I found 8 reinforced mounting holes in the bottom. These were precut 5/16th holes. I immediately knew that this would work perfect for the idea I was running through my brain. I wanted to bracket the bottom with track (angle), then make separate bracket for the radio and tuner that could “move” in some sort of fashion. My tracking the bottom, I could easily add axles and mounting holes for the radio bracket, which is what I’ve done. Here’s the bottom tracking, before adding anything else to it:

Surprisingly, and luckily I suppose, the distance between the bottom angle and the inside wall of the case was absolutely PERFECT for the battery area.

Now, I built a sturdy bracket to mount the radio and tuner within. I added slots in the bottom end to use with the axles for rotation upwards. This will allow me to rotate the radio up and out of the case, to see the front panel easily when I am operating portable.

Radio/Tuner Bracket

I cut the hole for the axle with a drill, then used a Dremel Tool to cut the slot. One this was complete, some minor fitting and then I inserted it into the case, for fitting of the upper “keeper” screws (see below).

After Fitting

Once fitted, and I should have mentioned this previously, I used the excess upper bracket material on the bottom of the radio bracket to secure the unit in place by drilling a hole on each side, putting machine screws up through the case bracket, securing that with nuts to the case bracket, through the holes on the radio bracket and then securing the radio down to these machine screws. This will be easily removed so that I can elevate the radio and tuner at an angle suitable for operation while the radio remains in the case (See below).

Here’s the battery case bracketing. There’s only two holes in this case, one for the the battery case and another I will be adding this evening for the cable pass-through. I will put a rubber grommet in place for the cable pass-through. I placed a single machine screw through the case to allow easy changing of the battery. I sealed the screw with silicone.

One might mention the aluminum bar between the positive and negative posts on the battery. The battery has protective plastic pieces that slip over the connectors. Also, because of the way the bracket is position, you can’t turn the battery to get it in position to touch both posts of the battery to the bar at the same time.

Here is the rig in an elevated position. I haven’t yet decided on what I will be using the keep the unit elevated. I stuck a scrap piece of angle under the radio bracket to keep it in this position. I’ve thought of a couple of ways of doing this permanently, I just haven’t decided which way I am going to go at this time.

This evening, I will be adding the hole and grommet for the cable pass-through and making my decision on what I will be doing to keep the radio at-angle. Otherwise, it’s finished and ready to roll, literally and figuratively 🙂

Tape Measure Antenna

I will be able to throw in a couple of wire antennas, baluns and my new tape measure antenna along with some rudimentary tools necessary in our way of life. In the meantime, this will be stored in the truck, for daily use.

73!

N8GB