Posted: 7/2/2011 6:00:31 PM EDT
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I like the idea of having separate EmComm boxes for the HF and VHF/UHF radios - It's a more versatile arrangement, IMO
Here's my VHF/UHF box, built around a Yaesu FT-7900r and a Pelican 1200 case. It was inspired by A_Free_Man's use of a larger Pelican case for his Icom IC-718. This particular case is available at Academy Sports for $50. 
The hard case contains just the fragile components - In this instance, just the radio and microphone. Everything else rides in the soft pouch attached to it. 
Once separated from the top piece, the bottom section fits in the ham shack without too much additional bulk. 
Since nothing in the top section is needed during normal operation, it sits in a closet until needed. 
The soft case contains: 1. A 12 volt laptop-style switching power supply (sufficient current to operate at the 20 watt power level), 2. A 12 volt extension cord (approx. 20 feet), 3. Alligator clips for making DC power connections directly to a 12VDC car battery, 4. A 14 amp PTC thermal circuit breaker with mating DC power connectors (typically connected next to the battery), 5. A lighter plug for obtaining DC power from a car lighter socket, 6. A dual-band flexible J-pole antenna & approx. 15' of attached co-ax (N0TAX model), and 7. String for hanging the J-pole. 
The radio is mounted on a metal sub-base, which is attached to the Pelican case with shock-absorbing rubber "sandwich" mounts. This particular radio badly needs an external speaker, so an 85mm speaker is mounted to the bottom of the Pelican case. The speaker cone is mylar, which provides some water resistance. 
The soft vinyl bag is attached to the top of the Pelican case with 1/4" bolts and fender washers. The Pelican case's original hinge pins were driven out and replaced with pull pins, in order to facilitate quick separation or attachment of the two case pieces. ETA: Misc. parts sources: RUBBER SANDWICH MOUNTS from McMaster-Carr: P/N 94955K22 HAIRPIN COTTER PIN (for making hinge pull-pins) from McMaster-Carr: P/N 92391A175 85mm MYLAR-CONE SPEAKER from MCM Electronics: P/N SR00188 |
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First, Skibane, thank you... I'm flattered.
And you pulled this off very nicely!!! SWEET! 
ETA, and your idea to use the mylar cone speaker... perfect! Also, as a speaker guy... guys, if you can avoid getting foam surrounds, and find a mylar (or poly) cone with a RUBBER surround, you will have a much longer lasting speaker for harsh conditions. |
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Veurry Nice!
Looks like you nailed the request from the Gent in MO (link Below) that stated in an Emer Situ they need easily portable devices-your's fits that bill nicely! BRAVO!
ETA: Field Deployable Comms LINK |
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Good work Ski, you will like it. [Until you start the next one...  ]Yeh, getting the HF version into a reasonably compact Pelican case is going to be a little bit more of a challenge... Not really. If you find a FT-100D or 857D it won't be to bad. I bought a briefcase type tool box and the radio and ps will easily fit in it. Batteries is a different story though. If you want portable antenna build yourself a PAC-12. Or one of the yoyo type antennas. |
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Let me preface this with the fact that I am a noob and am trying to continually learn from everyones projects and discussions.
I am thinking through building something very similar with an FT-8800. My thoughts about an EMCOMM related protable radio is that it should be able to power itself in the extreme cases where there is no power, so my question is why no batteries? I know that you were trying to keep it in a very minimalistic enclosure and keep it as small as possible and therefore, the attached bag to hold other items. Have you considered adding batteries to your bag? My thought is that the radio and its operator are no good without power and if there is no free power to get you up and running immediately, it seems like you would be standing around trying to figure things out. I have seen a very similar setup in a little larger pelican case that contained two batteries. I will upload pictures of it soon. Pic it apart and let me know where the flaws might lay. I am getting pushed out the door by the wife. Eta pics. 
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A_Free_Man any chance we can get some pictures of you HF set up? I'm not AFM, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express... A Free Man's HF Go Kit |
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My thoughts about an EMCOMM related protable radio is that it should be able to power itself in the extreme cases where there is no power, so my question is why no batteries? Yep, there's definitely two different schools of thought on this. My philosophy is that I am almost never more than a short distance away from at least one car battery - There's two parked out in my driveway right now, and around half a dozen of them in my immediate family. Just about any car that has been driven recently will have a fully-charged battery in it, capable of running this radio for a long time. (The FT-7900r consumes around 0.2 amps on receive, or less than 4 amps at 20 watts of transmit power. Your average car battery has a capacity of somewhere between 50 and 110 amp-hours - you can do the math on the radio's estimated run-time.) So, given the small odds of ever finding myself in a situation where neither 120 VAC nor a 12V battery of some sort was available, I'd rather not lug around an extra 2-4 pounds of lead that would be rarely - if ever - needed. |
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Good work Ski, you will like it. [Until you start the next one... ]Yeh, getting the HF version into a reasonably compact Pelican case is going to be a little bit more of a challenge... Not really. If you find a FT-100D or 857D it won't be to bad. I bought a briefcase type tool box and the radio and ps will easily fit in it. Batteries is a different story though. If you want portable antenna build yourself a PAC-12. Or one of the yoyo type antennas. All of the small-ish HF radios currently on the market suffer from at least one crucial missing built-in item: 1. AC power supply 2. Wide-range antenna tuner 3. Full 100 Watt transmit power Adding the missing item(s) to the package greatly increases the size of the Pelican case - and that's the problem. I'm not concerned about adding batteries, as explained above. Quoted:
cons: needs more orange.  Part No. 6760-01-379-3139. Have at it!
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A_Free_Man any chance we can get some pictures of you HF set up? I'm not AFM, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express... A Free Man's HF Go Kit Thank you sir. |
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My thoughts about an EMCOMM related protable radio is that it should be able to power itself in the extreme cases where there is no power, so my question is why no batteries? Yep, there's definitely two different schools of thought on this. My philosophy is that I am almost never more than a short distance away from at least one car battery - There's two parked out in my driveway right now, and around half a dozen of them in my immediate family. Just about any car that has been driven recently will have a fully-charged battery in it, capable of running this radio for a long time. (The FT-7900r consumes around 0.2 amps on receive, or less than 4 amps at 20 watts of transmit power. Your average car battery has a capacity of somewhere between 50 and 110 amp-hours - you can do the math on the radio's estimated run-time.) So, given the small odds of ever finding myself in a situation where neither 120 VAC nor a 12V battery of some sort was available, I'd rather not lug around an extra 2-4 pounds of lead that would be rarely - if ever - needed. I agree with you there, it is much easier to find a battery laying around than it is a radio. But I would definitely suggest having at least one AGM style battery in the house for backup power. Not just for emergency's, when big storm cells roll through and you get frequent cloud to ground lightning, it is prudent to have a mall antenna inside (Roll Up J-pole) and battery power so you can disconnect from the power grid. As evident by the recent Lightning VS G5RVjr thread here on ARFCOM. Of course we know those kind of storms never happen in Texas! 
ETA: Oh and the whole reason for the post in this thread, Very nice rig, and very clean! |
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Good work Ski, you will like it. [Until you start the next one... ]Yeh, getting the HF version into a reasonably compact Pelican case is going to be a little bit more of a challenge... Not really. If you find a FT-100D or 857D it won't be to bad. I bought a briefcase type tool box and the radio and ps will easily fit in it. Batteries is a different story though. If you want portable antenna build yourself a PAC-12. Or one of the yoyo type antennas. All of the small-ish HF radios currently on the market suffer from at least one crucial missing built-in item: 1. AC power supply 2. Wide-range antenna tuner 3. Full 100 Watt transmit power Adding the missing item(s) to the package greatly increases the size of the Pelican case - and that's the problem. I'm not concerned about adding batteries, as explained above. Quoted:
cons: needs more orange. Part No. 6760-01-379-3139. Have at it! a friend of mine has a FT-897D with the add on tuner and has the internal PS as well as 2 or 3 batteries and charger and takes up very little space. the PS fits inside the radio where the battery would go so it adds no extra space requirements. the tuner attaches to the side(left) of the radio and adds no more length but maybe 3-4 inches at most. it is a little larger than the FT-100D and the FT-857 but not that big of a difference. it would easily fit inside a brief case sized pelican case. my antenna(PAC-12) will easily fit in a bag attached to the case like you have shown. think 22 or 24" is all you need in length. the only down fall is when you want to change bands you have to change coils and readjust the length of the telescoping antenna. i can walk out to my antenna an change coils, adjust the length and be back on the air in less than a min. i have all the lengths written down so they are at the lowest SWR and keep that with the radio. its what i use whenever im on HF and get good signal reports 95% of the time. have worked from eastern to western europe to the med and out to the west coast and even canada with it running 100w. for what it is and what i have invested in it i couldnt be happier. setup takes about 10 mins. thats with setting up the tripod, attaching the grounding radials and extending them out, adding the coil and antenna and hooking up the coax. its something to think about, maybe. |
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a friend of mine has a FT-897D with the add on tuner and has the internal PS as well as 2 or 3 batteries and charger and takes up very little space. the PS fits inside the radio where the battery would go so it adds no extra space requirements. the tuner attaches to the side(left) of the radio and adds no more length but maybe 3-4 inches at most. Yep, the 897D seems to come closer to meeting all requirements than anything else out there. According to some of the reviews on eham.net, the Yaesu add-on antenna tuner has a quite limited tuning range, and doesn't tune random wires. LGC makes a slightly better tuner for the 897D (and will handle some long wires with an optional balun), but it's bigger and clunkier than the Yaesu tuner. I'm considering mounting something like a LDG Z100Plus in the top (deep) half of a Pelican case, with a 897D mounted on the bottom (shallow) part. This would allow the tuner to be separated and located remotely, next to the antenna - a nice feature with some antenna configurations. The top of the case would also provide some rain shelter for the tuner. |
| other than weight, any of the "all in one" compact radios you could do the same for. a PS and tuner on one half and the radio mounted to the other. my plan is to mount my FT-100D in this "tool case" i have along with a tuner and PS. the dimensions are just right and can fit the coax in the compartment above where the rest will go. the antenna will go in its own case or even secured in a piece of PVC. |
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Good work Ski, you will like it. [Until you start the next one... ]Yeh, getting the HF version into a reasonably compact Pelican case is going to be a little bit more of a challenge... Not really. If you find a FT-100D or 857D it won't be to bad. I bought a briefcase type tool box and the radio and ps will easily fit in it. Batteries is a different story though. If you want portable antenna build yourself a PAC-12. Or one of the yoyo type antennas. All of the small-ish HF radios currently on the market suffer from at least one crucial missing built-in item: 1. AC power supply 2. Wide-range antenna tuner 3. Full 100 Watt transmit power Adding the missing item(s) to the package greatly increases the size of the Pelican case - and that's the problem. I'm not concerned about adding batteries, as explained above. Quoted:
cons: needs more orange. Part No. 6760-01-379-3139. Have at it! a friend of mine has a FT-897D with the add on tuner and has the internal PS as well as 2 or 3 batteries and charger and takes up very little space. the PS fits inside the radio where the battery would go so it adds no extra space requirements. the tuner attaches to the side(left) of the radio and adds no more length but maybe 3-4 inches at most. it is a little larger than the FT-100D and the FT-857 but not that big of a difference. it would easily fit inside a brief case sized pelican case. my antenna(PAC-12) will easily fit in a bag attached to the case like you have shown. think 22 or 24" is all you need in length. the only down fall is when you want to change bands you have to change coils and readjust the length of the telescoping antenna. i can walk out to my antenna an change coils, adjust the length and be back on the air in less than a min. i have all the lengths written down so they are at the lowest SWR and keep that with the radio. its what i use whenever im on HF and get good signal reports 95% of the time. have worked from eastern to western europe to the med and out to the west coast and even canada with it running 100w. for what it is and what i have invested in it i couldnt be happier. setup takes about 10 mins. thats with setting up the tripod, attaching the grounding radials and extending them out, adding the coil and antenna and hooking up the coax. its something to think about, maybe. With the 897, get the LDG tuner (AT-897 Plus) made for that radio, not the Yaesu tuner. The Yaesu will tuner up to 3:1 SWR, that's about it. The LDG will tune up to 10:1. The consensus on the 897 groups was that the Yaesu tuner was more attractive in that it "matched" the radio better, but the LDG worked better. I suppose like guys worry warting about their AR-15's upper and lower receiver not exactly matching in shade of anodizing.  The LDG tuner only adds about 1 3/4" more width to the radio.
http://www.ldgelectronics.com/c/252/products/1/7/1 The built in power supply is really compact, and the radio appears no larger when tilted up via the bale on bottom. But it is a little thicker with that supply. If you were to only operate the radio in your house, I'd say just buy a Samlex SEC-1223 and have the same power at half the cost. But the Yaesu FP-30 is very nicely made and really compact. The only disadvantage is the lack of way to tap off the 12 v and operate other gear, like the backlight on the FT meter, or a noise reduction speaker, like the CLR-SPKR from West Mountain. That speaker is a great addition, BTW. I suppose you could solder in a pigtail with Anderson Powerpole to hang out the back. |
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The built in power supply is really compact, and the radio appears no larger when tilted up via the bale on bottom. But it is a little thicker with that supply. If you were to only operate the radio in your house, I'd say just buy a Samlex SEC-1223 and have the same power at half the cost. By most accounts, the Yaesu built-in supply adds around 3/4" to the height of the radio. By contrast, my SEC-1223 is 2-1/8 inches tall - which is why I'm not using it for this project. The way the Pelican product line is configured, even a relatively small increase in interior height can force you into a much larger case. So, keeping things low-profile is crucial. Here's the current plan (top and side views shown), using a Pelican 1450 case that houses a FT-897d, a LDG Z-11Pro II tuner, and a SignaLink USB (mounted sideways). This drawing is roughly to scale - the 1450's interior dimensions are 14.62" L x 10.18" W x 6.00" H:  The Z-11 was chosen partly due to its compact size (only 1.5" high), and partly due to its excellent reviews. Using a LDG AT-897 instead would have made for a VERY tight fit in the case, due to it being significantly longer than the radio it's attached to. |
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By most accounts, the Yaesu built-in supply adds around 3/4" to the height of the radio. By contrast, my SEC-1223 is 2-1/8 inches tall - which is why I'm not using it for this project. Actually, if the 897 is tilted up via the bale there is no difference in height of the radio in use. It is really a nice power supply, but quite expensive. If you don't want to tap into the radio or power supply to power an accessory, you could make up a male/female connector and insert into the power supply line on the back. I did this at the club station on Field Day. I made up a 6" long piece of 10 ga red/black zip with powerpoles on each end, and some small 18 ga coming out of the back side of one end of the Powerpole (twisted in with the 10 ga) to another Powerpole. This was thin inserted in line between the power supply and radio, just breaking the PowerPole connection already there. This left the little pigtail with PowerPole hanging out to power the West Mountain Radio CLR-SPKR. Field Day... headphones for all operators was a huge help. Also, for one of the new guys, we had a 2 into 1 1/4" adapter so that two sets of earphones could be plugged into one radio. An experienced operator sat beside him, gave some guidance, and logged the contacts until the new operator got into the swing of things. |
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Other URL's
http://www.seahorsecases.com/ Cheaper alternative to Pelican http://www.gammaresearch.net/hps-1a.html A TINY power supply suitable for "go kits". http://www.powerwerx.com/ Anderson Powerpoles, various connectors, power harnesses, etc. http://www.gruberpower.com/gruberpower/advertising/batteries/cutsheets/UPS-58-GPS-12-12f2.asp Various gel batteries at reasonable prices. And the OP is correct, always near a battery, so I also made up 10 ga red-black zip coming out to Powerpoles hanging under the dash of my vehicles. But in addition, I made a Y harness with battery clamps (like used on jumper cables) coming out to an Anderson Powerpole connection. And a 10' Powerpole to Powerpole extension cord made from 10ga zip. Don't forget the 12 volt battery in your ATV, lawn tractor, or other small engine equipment. You could even start the engine to keep the battery charged. I have also run off one of those all in one trunk battery boosters, for a few hours, having equipped it with a pigtail coming out to Anderson Powerpole. |
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Quoted: Other URL's http://www.seahorsecases.com/ Cheaper alternative to Pelican http://www.gammaresearch.net/hps-1a.html A TINY power supply suitable for "go kits". http://www.powerwerx.com/ Anderson Powerpoles, various connectors, power harnesses, etc. http://www.gruberpower.com/gruberpower/advertising/batteries/cutsheets/UPS-58-GPS-12-12f2.asp Various gel batteries at reasonable prices. And the OP is correct, always near a battery, so I also made up 10 ga red-black zip coming out to Powerpoles hanging under the dash of my vehicles. But in addition, I made a Y harness with battery clamps (like used on jumper cables) coming out to an Anderson Powerpole connection. And a 10' Powerpole to Powerpole extension cord made from 10ga zip. Don't forget the 12 volt battery in your ATV, lawn tractor, or other small engine equipment. You could even start the engine to keep the battery charged. I have also run off one of those all in one trunk battery boosters, for a few hours, having equipped it with a pigtail coming out to Anderson Powerpole. Great links...thanks. |
The HF version uses a Pelican 1450 case, bolted to a Plano #1404 "XL Accessory Case" (a 4-pistol case sold at Academy Sports for $15). 
As before, only the easily-damaged stuff rides in the Pelican case on the bottom. All the accessories ride in the Plano case on top. 
Separated from the top section, and ready for use. 
The FT-897's tilt bail was removed from the bottom of the radio, and reinstalled on the bottom of the Pelican case. 
As before, the radio is bolted to a metal sub-base, which in turn is attached to the bottom of the Pelican case with vibration-absorbing rubber "sandwich" mounts. Due to the radio's considerable weight, 10 sandwich mounts were used, spread out around the case to distribute any shock loads. 
Stacked for the shack...
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