Portable QRP Project



The purpose of this project is to research, then implement a portable ham
station that can be operated by a blind person from an apartment and from
other portable locations using either battery power for Field Day and other
portable situations or a power supply for primary home operation.  There are
several ultimate goals as follows:



1.      Operate from an apartment with little or no evidence that there's a
ham station.

2.      Operate the ARRL Field Day contest event and in other portable
situations such as another person's house, amateur radio demonstration site
or outside the office building at work.



 Antennas



The antenna must be stealth or nearly stealth.  It must also be usable by a
blind person with no special test equipment available and little or no
available sighted assistance.  This means there must be no tuning
requirements that require sight to adjust the antenna or read an SWR meter.
Though sufficient performance is required to actually make contacts (we're
not looking for a dummy-load here) any and all performance compromises are
acceptable to reach the results described in this paragraph.



 Radios and Power Requirements



The rig must be QRP to prevent unnecessary RFI and to minimize power
consumption during portable operation such as Field Day.  An inability to
completely use all functions of the radio by a blind person is acceptable,
so long as the basics of changing frequencies, listening and transmitting
are possible without the need for computer control of the rig.  If only
basics are possible, an accessible computer control option must be available
for fuller operation in a less portable situation.



The following are the goals for the radio and power requirements:

·        Extremely portable light-weight radio.  Should easily fit in a
backpack.  Radio will likely be transported on public transportation such as
a city bus or carried by way of walking since blind people can't drive
automobiles.

·          Basic operations of the radio, including QSY, listening and
transmitting must be possible without sighted assistance.  Full
configuration and operation of the radio must be possible with accessible
computer control when the radio is not being used in a portable situation.

·        Extremely portable, , safe and easy to implement battery power is
required.  No car batteries or other possible dangers or items that require
sighted assistance to set up and maintain.  Prefer battery power solution be
provided with the radio or as a recognized accessory for the radio within
the ham community.  Potential miswiring of positive and negative terminals
prevent any experimentation; it must be widely known to work out of the box
by being connected to the radio.