My Radio Go Box
What is a Radio go box?
Well funny you should ask. I think I can tell you and let you see what I have come up with for my specifications.

A Radio go box is in short an easy way to transport my portable radio shack quickly and easily with minimum fuss and no forgotten or missed equipment. That is the my definition of a radio go box now lets see what would we want to put into the radio go box?

Well first we should define what we want to do with the radio go box whenever we get to where we are going. I think we would like to have vhf/ uhf communications and probably hf communications. Well if we have an hf radio the antenna we use portable might be a compromise of some sort so an antenna tuner might be a good addition. Since we would want the radio go box to be able to support all modes maybe a tnc for hf and another tnc for uhf/vhf. Everything should be in the box that is needed so a power supply in the box would be a must. We would like the box to be easy to set up so that anyone could set it up and get on the air quickly. The box it self needs to be rugged and should provide protection to all the equipment that we put it. This makes this box sound pretty big and pretty heavy and not much of a portable radio go kit unless you start thinking of the new radios that are out there that are small and light weight and have 100watts out on hf and 50 watts out on 2m and 35 watts out on 440.

So lets look at our checklist:

      
Now here is the equipment list and links for my box
1)
 hf capability
Now from this check list I developed my equipment list that went in to my Radio Go Box. My equipment list not the end all of equipment and yours probably will be different since most of the quipement that I used I had already and needed to buy very little to completet the box. Also for those out there that might not have the luxury of haveing all this extra equipment around just remember you can use this box in your ham shack as well as portable so you don't need to duplicate your equipement and it makes it easy to take your shack with you.
1)
 Yeasu FT-857D Yeasu FT-857D
2)
 vhf capability  
2)
 Kenwood TM-D700 Kenwood
TM-D700
3)
 uhf capability  
3)
 LDG z-100 ultra auto tuner LDG z-100
4)
 Digital and voice modes= tnc  
4)
 Kantronics KAM + tnc from ebay but what i want SCS-PTC
5)
 hf antenna tuner  
5)
 Kantronics KPC-3+ tnc KPC-3+
6)
 Some type of box  
6)
 Alinco DM-330MVT DM-330MVT
     
7)
 Gator 6 unit shallow DJ road case Gator 6
     
8)
 Rack mount shelves Shelves
     
9)
 Wiring Rig Runner
     
10)
 Cooling fan 12 vdc muffin fans  
 

Now what are the capabilities of this Radio go box that I have built, and is it practical?

Well the FT-857D gives us full hf capabilities and gives up a back up 2m and 440 radio. With the FT-857D connected to the KAM + we have the ability to do pactor 1 and other digital modes. Pactor 1 is important as it gives us the ability to send and receive email any where in the world. The LDG z100 gives us the ability to tune an antenna to work on most any band. The TM-D700 gives us a mobile radio with APRS capabilities and connecting it to the KPC-3+ gives us the ability to run telpac and do packet modes. So as you see the two radios give us all the capabilities that most of us just barely have in our ham shacks. As for practical well it weighs in at about 35 pounds which makes it luggable and since the outside dimensions are 13.5”x 22”x 17.5” and everything in the box runs on 12 volts so if needed a battery could be hooked up to run the hole station if 120 volts ac mains are not available. The only thing we have not talked about is antennas and I think we should think about what is easy to put up and use. The simplest hf antenna that can be thrown up is a dipole or a buddy pole or even a screwdriver antenna. I believe for 2m 440 any good mobile antenna with a ground plane or mag mount will work for as a mag mount can be thrown up on top of any metal structure or automobile. The hf dipole can be slung up with a rope and connect it to the box and hf is on the air. Can this work yes as I went hunting between Christmas and new years of 2006 and it took a friend and myself 30 minutes to put an 80m dipole up at about 50’ and I put a mobile 2m 440 antenna up at 20’ using a push up pole and was on the air with in an hour of my arrival in camp. Understand that camp is in the middle of Hancock county Georgia and cell phone access is a mile away from camp. Now for this week in the woods I had the capabilities of email from camp and could hit a local repeater in Eatonton Georgia. This meant that I had all the communications that I need for emergency and safety consideration. I was able to beacon out my position so that people could see my location at findu.com. I sent emails out on my status in camp and how the hunting was (don’t worry the deer won this time) so is the box practical I would have to say yes from my experience.
Now how do we build a radio go box? Well you need to be handy with a screwdriver maybe a hack saw a drill and have a variety of drill bits and machine screws nuts and lock washers some aluminum angle for brackets. You can pick all the miscellaneous. parts up at a DIY store in your local area. If you check out the links I have posted you can see where I bought some of the things of course your local radio store is a good source for the radio specific gear.
   
                 
Now for layout of equipment is totally up to you, I chose a layout that I liked and makes it easy to work with. You can see the pictures of how I mounted speakers for each radio and the displays for each radio on the top row of the box. I then chose to mount the tnc’s and the antenna tuner on the next shelf. The next shelf down has the radios and power supply mounted. The final shelf is a drawer for my laptop to be secured to. Well with everything mounted and all the cabling is done in the backside of the box. I now have 3 connections to make and the radios are on the air. What are the three connections?
   
1)
Vhf/uhf antenna
   
2)

Hf antenna
   
3)
Power (weather it be a battery or 120 volt mains)
   
         
As you can see the radio go box is a practical and highly capable box and it is easy to lug around and set up and use and would be great for anyone that is interested in emergency communications.
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