It’s been about a month since I started doing all of my Winlink Wednesday check-ins using the Pat + Ardop toolchain. It’s been remarkably successful. I have transitioned away from Windows-Only software, though I do keep a laptop running Winlink + VARA HF handy. There’s no reason to toss a solution that is known to work.
The only computer I have that’s running this new setup is my MS Surface Go 2 which runs Ubuntu as its operating system. That means I’ve been putting wfview through its paces with the IC-705. That’s a write-up for another day. The point is, my field setup is doing quite nicely when it comes to sending and receiving email. I’m checking in to two nets a week using this setup and my attic dipole antenna. I would call it stable.
Note: testing from the field has also gone well. That will be a topic for another entry. Right now, my field excitement is all about CW operations. Winlink check-ins happen on weekdays when I’m at home so using the attic dipole makes the most sense. I’m also most likely to be at home in a grid-down scenario, so using what I’ve got here is a good thing.
Today, I wanted to test out something else. I decided to run the IC-705 with the Hardrock-50 PA on battery power. It’s always on my mind that we don’t really know how our equipment works if we don’t practice with all of the different combinations and functions.
I have two battery boxes. One of them is a homebrew that involves an ammo can, an SLA battery, and a pile of parts from Powerwerx. It’s ugly inside and every time I open it to recharge it, I swear I’m going to go back in there and cable tie things up and maybe shrink wrap a few things. That hasn’t happened yet, but I do think about it when I charge it. The all-in on that power box was under $100, as I recall. It weighs as much as a car and would not be a great option for backpacking given that it would easily double the weight of a pack. But it’s inexpensive, really difficult to destroy, and works well in a vehicle or camper situation. It provides Powerpole and USB out.
The other box is one that I got from Powerwerx that was pre-wired with cool components like a 12v outlet, USB outlets, Powerpole outlets, and actual posts for wiring up things that don’t fit in the other categories. I power it with a 24Ah LiFePO4 battery. This combo was $300-ish and 2/3 of that was the battery. The insides of this box are, as one might expect, much prettier than my homebrew. And given the plastic material used for the box and the battery chemistry, well, it’s a LOT lighter than the one I built myself. It also has room in it to store additional cables which comes in very handy.
These boxes go with us when we take the camper out. If we don’t have shore power, I will use them to power my radios so I don’t drain the camper battery bank. We’ve not had a problem with that yet as our solar panels do a more than adequate job of keeping the battery bank topped off. They go along for emergencies and convenience.
For this check-in, I attached the HR50 to the Powerwerx box. I will make arrangements to test the other box this Friday when I check in to the Fedi Net. (That reminds me, we should get a website set up for that net.) I was easily able to send my check-in to the Winlink Wednesday net using the IC-705’s battery, the Powerwerx box for the HR-50, and the battery in the Surface Go 2. No powerlines were involved. Not a bad test.
A better test would be to set it up and run it for a long weekend out in the camper. See how the solar panels do in terms of keeping things running. Figure out if there is a 72 hour operating window. Though the real beauty of Winlink is being able to communicate asynchronously. Check the mail when bands are good and solid connections can happen. Conserve power or sit on the extremely low receive draw that the IC-705 has.
Checking in to the Winlink nets is only one part of a larger preparedness practice. I would argue that it’s easy enough that everyone should try it and that it’s likely to be table stakes for communication during an incident.
Note: I am NOT an expert on emergency communications. There are plenty of other blogs for that. I do think that it’s a good idea for each of us to spend a little time getting comfortable with the concepts and reviewing current thoughts and technologies that might improve our ability to help should the need arise.
