Lightweight Field Comms Kit
Complete all band digital communications kit in under 8 lbs? Here it is:
Lab 599 TX-500 radio
MFJ 9201 QRPocket Manual Tuner
Bioenno 3AH battery
Digirig data modes interface plus associated cables, power & USB ETC.
15' coax + choke
Balun, 73' antenna wire + 25' counterpoise from the Chameleon MPAS system. This gives me a 1.0:1 match on 80, 2.5:1 on 40, and 2.2:1 on 20. Both easily matched using the tuner.
Paracord, insulators, jumpers.
16 oz throw weight. Ounces are pounds & pounds = pain, but this pound is worth carrying for the ability to quickly get your antenna up HIGH. launching the wire up 35- 40 feet using cordage and what's in your environment is a next to impossible task, but quickly and easily done with the throw weight.
Leave the computer at home and save weight by running an Android device (Pixel 6) with ANDFLMSG which gives you all the keyboard to keyboard functionality like Contestia 4/250 and MFSK 32 and the file transfer ability from FLMSG.
Set up as an end fed inverted V, which is my go-to configuration, radiation patterns observed in the real world tend to match the modeled patterns.
80:
40:
And 20: