3 ms·
What's the most lightweight, portable ham radio? Is it comparable to a smartphone?
by hyperpallium 8y ago
What's the most lightweight, portable ham radio?
Is it comparable to a smartphone?
- brians 8y agoMore comparable to a raspberry pi. There are some UHF transceivers the size of thumb drives, and a couple beacon designs the size of lithium coin cells—the idea is you clip the coin cell on, then put this in your drone/rocket/balloon. Mass is a couple grams at most. A typical low-power shortwave station will fit comfortably in my spare space in a backpack, as described at the link.
- cylinder714 8y agoIt's about as big as a book, but a popular choice is the Yaesu FT-817ND and its replacement FT-818ND. Both are low-powered radios, transmitting only a few watts, but they cover all of the ham high-frequency bands, as well as the popular 2-meter and 440 MHz VHF bands. You can also receive aviation traffic and the FM broadcast band. If you don't need all-band coverage, there are smaller, lighter transceivers available.
- FlyMoreRockets 8y agoI guess it depends on what you mean by "ham radio". Here's a tiny surface mount transmitter that is barely more than a gram and operates on amateur frequencies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMkaN21K5S0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMkaN21K5S0 Gerber file, bill of materials, etc are freely available. I'm looking at modifying the design into a beacon for a rocket radiolocation project.