{"id":578,"date":"2011-11-20T17:35:53","date_gmt":"2011-11-20T22:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.red-bean.com\/sussman\/?p=578"},"modified":"2011-11-20T17:35:53","modified_gmt":"2011-11-20T22:35:53","slug":"how-to-trick-out-a-portable-ham-radio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.red-bean.com\/sussman\/?p=578","title":{"rendered":"How to trick-out a portable ham radio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As I&#8217;ve mentioned before, I&#8217;m very much into the portable, low-power subculture of amateur radio.  On business trips, I like to find random hilltops (just like my mentor does), set up a simple vertical whip antenna, and then use my tiny battery-powered radio to start chatting with people around the country.  It&#8217;s really quite a thrill.<\/p>\n<p>The Yaesu FT817-ND is a really popular radio for this kind of thing.  It&#8217;s tiny, battery-powered, only weighs a couple of pounds, and puts out 5 watts of power.  Backpackers and hikers love it.  That said, there&#8217;s still a huge aftermarket of &#8220;mods&#8221; you can add-on to make it more pleasureable to use.  I thought I&#8217;d share some of these mods here with other aspiring low-power hams. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/-8mQDh3guZbY\/Tsl7A7DKQrI\/AAAAAAAAHMM\/6RKguBv-ZqQ\/s640\/817.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a guide to the different additions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>A:<\/b>  <i>Bulldog morse code paddles<\/i>.  These tiny paddles are made from sewing notions (buttons) and a tiny binder clip but work great and have a magnetic base that sticks to the radio.  They&#8217;re no longer made, but a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amateurradioproducts.com\/\">newer version<\/a> screws to the side of the radio.<\/li>\n<li><b>B:<\/b>  <i>DSP noise filter<\/i>.  This is an internal module installed for me by the fine folks at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.w4rt.com\/FT-817-main-page.htm\">W4RT<\/a>, who specialize in 817 upgrades.  It almost completely destroys the static noise floor, just like the noise reduction in my big radio.  The change is dramatic and invaluable.<\/li>\n<li><b>C:<\/b>  <i>300hz CW filter<\/i>  Just a standard mechanical Collins filter for making morse-code much more intelligible;  offered as an accessory directly from Yaesu.<\/li>\n<li><b>D:<\/b>  <i>Speech compressor<\/i>.  Another W4RT mod installed <em>within<\/em> the hand microphone, it supposedly emphasizes  the mids and trebles of the human voice, making my voice much more intelligible to others when using SSB over 5 watts.  Others have told me that I sound really clear with it!<\/li>\n<li><b>E:<\/b>  <i>Kranker knob<\/i>.  Another W4RT mod which makes the main dial much more usable &mdash;  both for fine and rapid coarse-tuning.<\/li>\n<li><b>F:<\/b>  <i>Peg legs<\/i>.  Cute little foldable feet from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mtechnologies.com\/palm\/pegleg.htm\">Palm Radio<\/a>, which tip the radio upwards towards your eyes.  It&#8217;s amazing what an ergonomic difference this makes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Of course, once I&#8217;m actually in the field, I use an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.elecraft.com\/T1\/T1.htm\">Elecraft T1 tuner<\/a> (about the size of a deck of cards!), and an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.buddipole.com\/portablepower.html\">A123 nanophosphate 4.6AH battery<\/a> for up to 8 hours of operation in the field.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lh4.googleusercontent.com\/-WpxOmLwKDR8\/TgSYYxHAo8I\/AAAAAAAAFSk\/rP6P3dYkAV8\/s640\/IMG_20110624_085915.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I&#8217;ve mentioned before, I&#8217;m very much into the portable, low-power subculture of amateur radio. On business trips, I like to find random hilltops (just like my mentor does), set up a simple vertical whip antenna, and then use my tiny battery-powered radio to start chatting with people around the country. It&#8217;s really quite a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ham-radio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.red-bean.com\/sussman\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.red-bean.com\/sussman\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.red-bean.com\/sussman\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.red-bean.com\/sussman\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.red-bean.com\/sussman\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=578"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/blog.red-bean.com\/sussman\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":596,"href":"http:\/\/blog.red-bean.com\/sussman\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions\/596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.red-bean.com\/sussman\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.red-bean.com\/sussman\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.red-bean.com\/sussman\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}