Xiegu G90 Portable Go Kit
2020-04-22 Took the G90 and WRC TIA to the back yard about 1:00pm today. Setup went smoothly and I was "on the air" in about fifteen minutes. Unfortunately, there was nothing but noise. Changed to my Sotabeams Link Dipole and heard a couple signals on 40 and 20 but no contacts. When I checked the ic7-100 inside I found the same. Bad Day to play radio! It wasn't a total loss though as I got more experience and enjoyed setting up and getting everything going.
The "kit" for today was the G90 and accessories in the larger bag (lower right), battery, power cable and key in the smaller bag (lower left), WRC tripod, whip and pvc leg extenders in the tube and ground radials, coax and bits and pieces in the third (top) bag. The carbon fiber fishing pole for the Sotabeams link dipole is also shown.
2020-04-10 Building a go kit based on the 20 watt Xiegu G90 is a bit more complicated than one for the X5105. That's because the radio is divided into two parts, the main body and the control head. Of course you could mount the control head to the body and have one piece but then it is a little bigger and in my opinion a bit harder to use in the field due to the form factor, with the control head on the end of a long narrow rig. It also requires an external battery, one more piece to the puzzle. Neither of these are huge deals, just my observations. The final result is also about three lbs heavier at just under ten lbs. But in exchange for the above you get 20 watts rather than just 5 watts.
The kit pictured above is just an initial attempt to put a kit together. It includes the g90 and separation and power cable. The antenna included is a pacific antenna 4020 trap antenna with cords needed to set it up as an inverted vee using the Shakespear 20 ft Wonderpole fiberglass fishing pole. twenty five feet of RG-174 with appropriate connectors, a Speed-x straight key with cable are also included along with the microphone. I also packed several tent pegs and guy ropes for the Wonderpole. And finally a note pad and a couple of pencils. So the packed bag, Wonderpole and 4.5 Ah battery are the whole portable package. I have not done in-field trails with it as described though I have had all the pieces outside and on the air so feel fairly confident in it.
Of course the whole package could be modified with a different antenna, feedline and larger battery as well as other bits and pieces which would alter the weight some. And I'd like a different bag. The one pictured is pretty tightly packed allowing little flexibility in contents.