VHF UHF Ammo Can Go Box (1 Viewer)

[JamesR]

I have a FT-2800 mounted in my 86 FJ 2800. I wanted to build a VHF/UHF ammo can go box. I have an HF, VHF/UHF, go box that’s larger and used for EMCOMM, but I also wanted a smaller go box for camping. I’m in the process of building a solar generator to power the go boxes so my design of the ammo can was based on this and simplicity.
I’m going to “clean up” the box by painting the wood or adding some type of corner molding to the exposed wood.

 

[izzyandsue]

Looks great, did you make it yourself? I was looking at this Quicksilver Radio | Ham Radio Store , they sell the complete kit or with radio as well. Seems like a great idea.

 

[JamesR]

I made it. I've seen the ones at Quick Silver. They look very professional however I think they are over priced especially for the radio they include.
Thanks for the kind words.

 

[JamesR]

I've cleaned it up a bit.

 

[woytovich]

At 7ah how long do you think you will be able to use the radio given a simple ongoing conversation?

 

[JamesR]

That depends on a couple of things, one is the power setting. This radio has 3 levels 5 - 15 - 50 watts, another is receiving and/or transmitting. There's very little draw while the radio is receiving/monitoring. I'm going to "test" the set up for receive only by programming the NOAA frequency and "time" long the radio will receive the transmission. I'm also going to use it to check in to some local nets. Now that the holidays are over many of the nets are going to return to the regular schedule. I'll post the results.

I'm in the process of building a solar generator that will be use as the primary power source.

 

[LongDuck]

Great project and I like how you put it together. I'm doing something similar with a Kenwood TM-281A mono-bander (2m) which is a smaller radio and trying to get it to fit in a .30cal can - much smaller box dimensions! I ran out of room for the internal battery, in fact. Planning to run it with battery cable clips which store inside the can, along with a short span of coax for the external antenna (1/4 wavelength) and thin magnetic mount.

I considered putting it all in a .50cal can, and would use the same type of battery you mentioned, which is why I'm posting. When you do your timed test for monitoring only, along with various power transmit, be sure and capture your Duty Cycle ratio.

Very interested in your results, and thanks for detailing your build here.