While I am very much not a fan of the tacticool, I’m very happy with the 5.11 large emergency ready bag for the #XieguG90. It has the Accordian Goodness, fits the radio, antenna, batteries, cables and various accessories, and can fit inside my 35L backpack with lots of room to spare.

I’ll be cutting up some choroplast to slide in some of the outside interior pockets for rigidity and protection. Could really come in brighter colors a la Tom Bihn but beggars can’t be choosers.

While my wildest dreams involve Tom Bihn making a padded version of this bag, and I am becoming increasingly conflicted about supporting "tactical" brands re: many of those brands support of groups that are a little too into fascism, this bag does meet most of what I want for a portable ops bag for the #XieguG90: https://www.511tactical.com/emergency-ready-bag.html

#HamRadio

TFW when Tom Bihn drops a new bag that looks perfect for #XieguG90 field ops / #POTA/#SOTA but you're broke.

I blame @qrper for this newfound bag obsession.

Well that's a bummer: plugging headphones into my #XieguG90 introduces this choppy noise, even with ferrite beads on everything. But it's only when I have the head unit detached. With the head unit attached to the main unit the noise is undetectable if it's there. Hopefully this won't be an issue with #SOTA but I can see it being an issue if there are noise sources nearby in a park or something.

One of the things I learned from my #SOTA activation the other day is that it’s hard to have the #XieguG90 plus notebook balanced on my legs while trying to log contacts and look at the screen. I needed some sort of lightweight clipboard.

Choroplast to the rescue!

But then I decided to also take advantage of the G-90’s detachable head unit and mount that to the board. Happy with with this mock-up for now and may design something to be 3D printed down the line…

The tuner on the #XieguG90 is definitely amazing but it will not, in fact, tune a pizza pan. Let alone 4, much to my disappointment. 😂

Continuing with the Bag Obsession for a #XieguG90 #SOTA/#POTA kit: found this Topo Design Quick Pack for super cheap on eBay.

Pros:
- Padded sides
- Fits a whole Shack-in-a-Box setup: Transceiver, 6Ah Bioenno, & Norcal doublet

Cons(?):
- Fewer pockets may mean slightly more challenging organization
- Doesn't fit all this + a phone + GPS (but given that I'll be using them while hiking, do they need to be in the radio bag?)
- Slightly tighter fit in unpadded pockets for connectors

(1/x)

20 Meters ~23:38 to 23:45 UTC

(Busy band!)

- Unidentified station from Montana, USA
- KQ4EFU (unclear if they were TX station or if TX was making QSO with them)
- KC4BB (AL, USA)
- KE8?? (Michigan, USA)
- KF0JYF (N MN, USA)
- N0XMD (OH, USA)
- KT4Q POTA (NC, USA)
- XE1A (Mexico!)

Vast improvement over the planar disc antenna for HF, I'd say. #HamRadio #SWL #HF #NorcalDoublet #Xiegug90 #RX

Deploy of a #NorcalDoublet in my backyard this evening before dusk.

Set up inverted V in N-S orientation with center ~25 ft AG in my backyard. SWR on 20m through 10m was >4:1 to 3:1. Need to use #NanoVNA to see if I need to tune it because for TX that just won't do.

Great RX down to 20m on the #XieguG90 before it got dark and my feet froze. SSB SWLs include Santiago Chile, southern California, and an unidentified station in Alaska on 10m. 🤯

See thread for SWLs from Western MA, USA.

Deploy of a #NorcalDoublet in my backyard this evening. Set up in inverted V in N-S orientation with center at about 25 ft above ground. Successful RX and #SWL down to 20m on the #XieguG90:

Deploy of a #NorcalDoublet in my backyard this evening. Set up in inverted V in N-S orientation with center at about 25 ft above ground. Successful RX and #SWL down to 20m on the #XieguG90:

@n6cta

but as far as antenna types the #XieguG90 ATU seems to restrict options if I understand things correctly; as you said it can’t handle an open-fed multiband doublet.

For trad + WARC a Palomar style 80-10 OCF seems to get me more of what I want than a #GRV5 or #ZS6BKW, even though I’d be looking at ~11-12% feedline loss with the cable I have on hand + 5-10% ATU loss above 20. That seems pretty good? I don’t know.

In any case, this is more fun than studying for the exams.

Found a pretty good bag for the #XieguG90 — the SwissGear 1092 as a modular solution to go in a larger pack for #SOTA / #POTA. There's enough room for radio + accessories, but the form factor of a 6Ah Bioenno battery doesn't fit; a flatter 3Ah would. Radio & my attempt at a #NorcalDoublet fit snugly in the main compartment. I really like the accordion-style opening and the many pockets for bits and baubles. The bag seems well made and was only $30 US. Still need to flesh out my kit, though.

Trying set set up "improved" CW trainer by patching the headphone-out from my Xiegu G-90* into the mic port of my sound card, then using sox -d -d | multimon-ng -t raw -a MORSE_cw -v1 - to decode it.

Running into two annoying issues: 1.) There's enough of a delay that the CW that comes out of my computer speaker is not at all what I'm keying 2.) sox text output seems to over-ride multimon-ng's, so I don't see decoded CW. #XieguG90 #MorseCode #HamRadio

*QSK is off, which shuts off CW TX on G-90

Will gladly take all guesses. This is happening on all upper HF bands, no matter the frequency or mode.

#HF #HamRadio #XieguG90 #QRM

Got my #BioEnno 6Ah / 12V battery in the mail today, which means I could finally start #RX using the #XieguG90.

I am super impressed.

Unsurprisingly a much lower noise floor than my RTL-SDR, so am picking up a ton of stuff that was lost in the noise including hearing F5IN CQ’ing DX on 20m in the middle of the night.

All this on a pizza pan planar disc antenna. Excited to see how RX will be on a NorCal Doublet.

The #MorseCode decoder works surprisingly well on this unit with some fiddling.

@geojoek@mastodon.radio

Update: This bag isn't quite big enough for the radio + a 6ah Bioenno battery / shack-in-a-compact bag setup I'm aiming for with the #XieguG90; it's a tight fit and I worry about the battery and other bits getting bashed around while in my backpack.

But I think I have found a cheap but well-constructed replacement after obsessively looking at bags online for a week. Will post photos of the new one when I get it and if it works. Stay tuned... #HamRadio #HF #SOTA #POTA

Fantastic #Morse Code decode with the #XieguG90.

https://youtu.be/bOd2C3T9iBo

TY everyone for the portable #HF rig advice! For #XieguG90 folks: what are your favorite #PowerSupply options for 20 & 10W? Both for #SOTA & AC--> DC for a home station? I realize this rig will be a 🚢⚓️ for SOTA but am trying to keep it as light as reasonable.

Trying to research it, & have some ideas (i.e., BioEnno) but am overwhelmed w/ the options + considerations. E.g.: CW vs. SSB can bake a switching power supply if one isn't careful in choosing?. #HamRadio #NewHam

So if you were a shiny new ham, which would you choose as your 1st portable #HF rig for #SOTA/#POTA? The venerable #YaesuFT817 or the #XieguG90?

Heavily leaning towards the G90 but try to convince me why I’d want to choose the 817 instead.

Arguments based solely on country of origin will get you blocked with a swiftness.

#HamRadio