For my first few Activations, I pushed an IC706 into Service  – powered with a couple of 9AH SLAB’s.

Antenna, 40 M dipole and a 9M squid pole to put it in the air.

After the bug had bitten, and I was hooked it was a case of looking for something lighter.

The next evolution of the Portable kit was in fact a KN-Q7A 40m SSB transceiver kit, and an Elecraft T1 QRP tuner.    This is a fun kit to build and a great little radio to operate, but it does have some limitations.

Wanting to move past a mono-band transceiver, again, I updated the kit.  An Elecraft KX3 replaced the KN-Q7A and the T1 Tuner.

But wait, there is more!  Along the way the other accessories have been added and evolved, until as things stand, my current kit is thus:

KX3 Transceiver
80W Power conditioner – to provide a constant 13.8V to the txcvr
9aH SLAB.
Yamaha CM-500 Headset
A Lightweight Foot-switch! -yep, 2 hands for logging!
9M Squid pole
10M of RG-316 Coax
40M dipole and some plastic corro board winders to allow easy adjustment for all bands 10 to 40M
Shock cord – attached to each end of the dipole to tie it out.
The Log book pens and pencils
Walkstool Comfort 55 XL
A backpack that I can put everything in

Now, this might sound like a lot, but all up, the “kit” is not too bad weight-wise.  It comes out to around the 5-6kg mark and the addition of a drink, snack and a camera makes it still light enough to get into the summits.

The next thing that I will look at will be to replace the 9aH SLAB with a LiFePo battery or 2 and drop the weight of the kit even further.