Just wanted to show you my new QRP go-pack, designed to be extremely portable for use in my back pack. It consists of a YouKits HB-1B tranceiver, a ZM-2 antenna tuner (Z-Match), 10 cell NiMH battery pack, Palm Key portable paddle with magnetic mount (the FT-817 model), pair of in-ear headphones, 2 x 10m random wire antenna (one goes into the next tree, one goes on the ground as counter poise), some thin nylon line to mount the antenna, and a golf ball with a hook as a weight to launch the antenna.

The antenna, although not ideal, is sufficient to establish contacts all over Europe. The golf ball is a little bit on the light side – it’s not able to pull the nylon string over a branch of a tree, so I will probably replace it with a heavier object (lead weight from fishing supplies?). The battery is just a collection of 10 separate 2700 mAh AA cells that I put in a standard battery holder. The new types of NiMH batteries have a pretty low self depletion rate, especially if you lean towards the new Panasonic Eneloop cells. Compared to an equivalent lead gel accumulator you save at least 50% of the weight. The standard battery holder is less than ideal with respect to resistance between the cells, but since I operate QRP with limited amperage, the losses are negliable. On the plus side, it is pretty easy to exchange a single cell that went south … try that with an inline soldered battery pack!

Generally a pretty capable portable pack! Any comments or ideas on how to improve the set?