Andy VE7PT at Oak Bay operating the portable station of Alan VE7UBA

Welcome to the wide-ranging IHF section on portable operation.  From the graphic above, there is a lot under this umbrella.  With a bit of thought, one can consider much of our ham radio practice as “portable”.  For purposes of this web site (and not to get hung up on semantics with “mobile”), we loosely define portable operation as any ham operation or activity away from your base station.

We hope to provide some information and links here that will support and improve your portable operation and enjoyment of ham radio.

This Portable Operation page is a work in progress.  Information will be added or updated from time to time.  If you have suggestions to add to or improve this section, please forward an email to Scott Schillereff, VA7SNJ, at scott dot schillereff at gmail dot com.




Historical Perspective

The image on the right depicts Guglielmo Marconi (then 21 years old) in 1895 conducting one of the first wireless transmissions between his antenna panels in his garden in Italy.  This was close to the start of it all – and it was PORTABLE!







Things progressed and on December 12, 1901, Marconi conducted the first trans-Atlantic half-QSO.  He received the letter “S” using a kite-mounted antenna in Signal Hill, St. John’s, Newfoundland (image below) from a spark transmitter and massive wire antenna in Poldhu, Cornwall.  This was the first “DX” and kicked off the paradigm of commercial radio communication with ham radio soon following.  And his set up at Signal Hill was arguably portable.



Marconi is the dapper gent in the middle.  His hired local assistants (either side) worked extremely hard to get the large hexagonal canvas kite (behind) aloft to support the long-wire antenna.

Wes Hayward, W7ZOI, a noted author in ham radio RF design and development, has been a proponent of portable ham radio for decades.  He has a fabulous retrospective article (https://w7zoi.net/mtnradio/port67.html) which is a very interesting read spanning the 1950s to present.  It demonstrates that /P operation has a long and rich history.  It also shows that portable operation long precedes the current enthusiasm for various On-The-Air awards programs (e.g., POTA, SOTA, etc.).  We must not fall into the trap of thinking that all portable operation is POTA!

Portable operation can and does include all modes of ham communication (perhaps with the exception with moon-bounce!).  A great recent benefit of the popularity of the world-wide *OTA programs has been a huge resurgence in (and rescue of…) CW operation.

Power Levels and Power Sources

Transmitting power levels chosen for /P operation largely depends on the available power source.  Where abundant power is available (e.g., through a portable generator, say, on Field Day), it is possible to run high (QRO) power levels (even up to the full legal limit).  Where power is vehicle-supported, power levels can range up to 100 W or more.  Where portable operation is “wagon-supported” (e.g., transporting equipment and one or more heavy batteries to a picnic table), powers can run up to about 100 W (given sufficient battery capacity).

Once ham equipment is transported by human power (e.g., hiking, biking, canoeing, etc.), weight (and bulk) become increasingly important factors.  Power is supplied by small battery packs or solar power and, necessarily, transmitting powers are reduced (typically to QRP levels) to preserve battery life.

Antennas

Most /P operation at HF uses some form of wire, whip or combination antenna.  This is typically because /P operation is short-term (hours to days) and antennas need to be put up and taken down fairly quickly.  Where weight and bulk becomes an issue, whip-based and small compromised wire antennas are commonly used, again for field expediency.  Even so, small compromised antennas can provide fantastic and head-spinning results when propagation is good.

HF /P operation mostly occurs on the 40-10 m bands, using CW, SSB, or digital modes.  Effective 80 m (or lower band) antennas are typically too long and cumbersome to put up for short-term portable operation.  VHF /P operation on 6 m is a strange beast, with a wide variety of possible antennas (fixed or hand-held).  Portable operation is very common with higher bands in the VHF and UHF spectrum (e.g., 2 m, 1.2 m, 70 cm bands) using hand-held transceivers.  Whip, wire, and higher-gain (beam style) antennas can be fixed or hand-held.

A fabulous compilation of 403 wire antennas (many suitable for /P operation) put together by Lulian Rosu YO3DAC (aka VA3IUL) is shown at https://k3rrr.com/403-cheap-diy-homebrew-wire-antennas-for-ham-radio/.

Finally, the writings of L.B. Cebik (W4RNL, SK) provide a treasure trove of fascinating, practical and authoritative information on antennas, feed lines and antenna accessories, based on exhaustive antenna modelling and real-world experience.  They can be found here: https://www.antenna2.net/cebik/

Portable Equipment

Portable ham equipment encompasses nearly the full range of ham radio.  Depending on your portable interests, a simple web search will yield dozens of videos, text articles, blogs, and reflector web pages for specific equipment or practice.  There are too many to list here.  Just let your fingers do the walking on the internet, and let your common sense guide you about real vs fantastic claims!

For human-transported /P operation, there has been an explosion of QRP designs, kits, products, antennas, and accessories available to ham operators in recent years.  A premier supplier of low-power ham equipment (ready-made and kits) suitable for /P operation is QRP Labs (https://qrp-labs.com/).  A premier supplier of commercially-made /P gear (including the recent release of hand-held KH1multi-band transceiver, and other transceivers, antennas, and tuners) is Elecraft (https://elecraft.com/).

Further Information

Additional useful sites for QRP /P information are: