ManPack / Portable Chassis is back in service

I dusted off my old Philips portable chassis, bought a new LiPo battery, and paired it with an Anytone AT-6666 I had that was not being used. I needed to 3d print some side brackets to attache the radio to the chassis but they were easy enough to print up. I'm considering whether to add in my LDG Z11 tuner which  will mean another set of 3D brackets. Not sure yet.

Dragon 10m HF portable is finished

A final bit of motivation and I finished my 10M portable radio. Here we are on Sunday finalising the wiring:

It has a Dragon SS-485H HF rig along with a Z11 ATU and runs a 7Ah SLA, All housed in a bench instrument enclosure from Jaycar. Some space constraints within the enclosure so the ATU is on the outside. I have a section to attach some counterpoise wires but haven't made any up yet.

And out in the back garden running a 2.4 metre ex-mil HF whip - ANT-129 22-30Mhz....

A local operator Darren - VK4HDO, came back to my call on 28.480 reporting my audio as good but the signal was low and according to his radio I was about 3Khz off frequency.

.....and with a more managable HF antenna

.....and on the radio bench running into the external 10M vertical

I'm hoping to get it ready for the WIA National field day on the 13th and 14th of April and see how it goes communicating from a hilltop.