I am a big fan of K8MRD videos as well as Josh Ham Radio 2.0. This is where came the idea of building a Battery Box. I have already build one but I will start building a new one, I have made some mistakes that I would like to correct and obviously as soon as you have made some holes in a box it is hard to re-use it.
It all started with the choice of the battery, I read and watch a lot of videos but in the ham world one brand is very well known and this is the one I chose also: Bioenno.
Considering I wanted to run at 100w for as long as possible but still keeping a reasonable weight as well as size I chose the 50AH model. It should give me a very long operating time at 100w SSB.
I used some of the below components for building my battery box:
In order to charge the battery I can either use a normal charger (the one from Bioenno is a 10AH) or my 150w solar panel from Sunslice (Fusion 150).
It was a fun project and I will start a new build with some changes. Indeed I will use different Anderson powerpoles I got from Powerwerx and a new Renogy battery controller which will allow me to differentiate the current drawn from the battery and the current charging the battery.
The fact is that from home I have a QRM at s9 +10db all day long on 20m/17m/15m/12m/10m. I also do not have the space to put up a decent antenna and only use an inverted V dipole at 14m above the ground on a spiderbeam fiberglass pole.
So I have been thinking a lot how to have more enjoyable time on the radio and I started to think about portable operation with the Buddihex.
Obviously the main criteria while looking for a location are:
Not too far from home (2h to 2h30 drive maximum)
Low noise location (very hard to find in Vietnam / South East Asia in general)
Have enough activities for the kids while going to the location with the family.
During my research I found out about Family Garden House, it is around 80km North East of Ho Chi Minh (1h30 minutes drive). It is next to Tri Ann Lake so kids can fish / swim or even do some camping and have a big garden to play in.
I went to this location on 3rd to 5th August and again from 10th August to 12th August.
After setting up the antenna the bad surprise was that there is also a high noise at this location as well. Around S7 which is a bit better than at home but still quite high.
But the antenna is a game changer compared to the dipole. Even if the Buddihex is only 7m high I have seen very good performance. I will probably do a post on the antenna.
We are planning to go again at this location from 31st August till 4th September and I will maybe try around the lake while camping with antenna next to the water and maybe with a bit less noise than at the house.
You can see some pictures below.
Buddihex2
Buddihex
I also had a huge storm which obliged me to take the antenna down very quickly.
Hopefully I will be able to give Vietnam to more stations while at this location.
Finally you can hear one of the pile up from my side on 4th August at around midnight local time on 20M.