It was an absolute pleasure, Mike! For the other teammates here, I'd like to point-out :
1. Cooter and I are roughly 800 miles apart, we had interference from thunderstorms and Spanish language voice, yet Cooters' signal and steady hand made copy easy. I could EASILY have taken a word-for-word report from him in Morse and either acted upon it or relayed it to ERIN in digital, or forwarded it to friends an family if he had been camping..
2. We are both using basic wire antennas.
3. He was using an LNR Precision MTR4b, operating on 8 AA batteries at 5 Watts output. This picture is a stock pic and uses a 9 volt 'transistor' battery, for size comparisson. You ABSOLUTELY have room in a backpack for this.
3.1 Cooters' transceiver is extremely portable, you could likely fit it into a shirt pocket.
4. No computer required; perfect for backpack portable and extremely low power requirement. ( re: A )
5. Maybe we should meet a few times per week on a regular schedule so that conversational Morse will become even easier?
Great job, Cooter and if you go portable, let me (us?) know and I'll be happy to act as 'Mother' station to meet you on-air to relay your traffic to/from camp.
Sir John Honeybucket ..._ ._
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A. Specifications:80 meter, 40 meter, 30 meter and 20 meter operation.
Receiver sensitivity : ~ 0.5 uV
Receiver audio bandwidth: ~ 400 Hz centered at 600 Hz.
Receiver current: ~ 27 maTransmit output power: 5 watts typical at 12.0 Volt input
Transmit current: 750 ma Max with 5 watt output
Transmit spurious outputs: -50 dBc or better
Supply voltage 5.5 volts minimum, 13 volts maximum. 6 to 12 recommended.
Antenna Jack: BNC
Power Jack: 5.5mm with 2.5mm pin
Dimensions: 5.150″ Length x 3.0″ Wide x 1.075″ Thick
Weight: 7.95 oz