My usual bush radio equipment comprises:

Icom IC-7300 100W HF radio
Pactor PTC IIe HF modem
Off centre fed 80m dipole
20m vertical with two radials
Yaesu FT-857D (in the four wheel drive for mobile HF, 2m and 70cm)
Famparc whip mobile HF antenna
100Ah PowerSonic AGM 12V battery - for the fridge/freezer
60Ah PowerSonic AGM 12V battery - for the radio
Three 60W solar panels and/or a 2kW Honda EU-20i generator and home made 27A battery charger


The 80m off centre fed (OCF) antenna comprises two arms of 25m and 12m respectively they are held aloft by a Spiderbeam 12m telescopic fibreglass pole. The Spiderbeam pole is not strong enough to support a balun at its top so I use 10m of 300R TV ribbon cable to connect the antenna arms to a balun mounted near the base of the Spiderbeam. Modified 80m OCF antenna

The 80m OCF is an excellent general coverage antenna and tunes (at better than 3:1) all the Amateur bands excepting 30m, it also seems to radiate well as I've had many contacts across the globe on the upper bands too. In addition to the OCF I often erect a 20m vertical which is the most simple of antennas; another fibreglass telescopic pole (7m tall - commonly called a squid pole) one piece of wire 5m long as the vertical radiator and two pieces also 5m long as radials. The radials are placed at 180 degrees and kept 1m or so above ground, usually just tied to convenient vegetation, the antenna is resonant or close to across most of the 20m band. A small junction box connects RG58 to the vertical and radials. Vertical antennas tend to have a low angle of radiation which is ideal for DX and this antenna performs well. Sometimes I use the Spiderbeam pole to make a similar 40m antenna but the 10m radials tend to be cumbersome.


Power wise: I use either the solar panels or a petrol generator. Charging the 12V batteries is my only use for 240V everything else is 12V DC, LPG or petrol. In an emergency the vehicle may be used for battery charging but it's bad practice to allow an engine to run on very light load for extended periods and may cause bore glazing = expensive!

The solar panels work well providing there are a few hours of sunshine each day but in Victoria and especially in the winter this is far from certain so the generator and high current home-made battery charger provides an alternative. Additionally, at Victorian latitudes the winter sun is quite low in the sky and much of its energy is filtered by the atmosphere, this situation is, of course, exacerbated by tree cover.

The solar panels are controlled by a MPPT controller which has a rather odd algorithm and produces some noticeable HF noise however the noise blanker in the radio takes care of that.

Another downside to solar:
The panels needs to be carefully packed in the vehicle and may be easily broken if other objects come loose - which they often do in a four wheel drive on bush tracks. I have made  lightweight wooden boxes to protect them.

Since I switched from a gas fridge/freezer to a 12V unit (TechniIce fridge/freezer - a great piece of kit) my 12V power consumption has increased considerably, the 12V 60lt fridge/freezer consumes 25Ah to 50Ah per day depending upon ambient temperature. During the warmer months (in Victoria) the solar panels will replace that but during the winter months they don't even come close and that's where the generator and 27A battery charger comes in. As, invariably, I am camped in the middle of a forest well away from others a couple of hours generator noise in the middle of the day is not a problem.

For the more technical: one issue is that the Chinese switch-mode PSU I use for my battery charger has a terrible power factor of 0.6 which caused my previous 900W generator to overcurrent trip above 23A at 14V7. The new Honda 2kW unit however handles this odd load more readily

Incidentally; conventional wisdom, states that freezers should be run at -18C or lower and for home use this is quite sensible. However I could not believe that bacterial growth at a slightly higher temperature would be such that it could be dangerous over the period of two or three weeks which is the maximum time any meat is likely to reside in my camp freezer. It was surprisingly difficult to locate formal documentation in this area but I eventually found research performed by the Irish Department of Health which indicates -12C is perfectly adequate for three months storage of domestic meat products. To this end I run the freezer at -12C which saves significant power. The fridge is kept at +2C.

Aside from the fridge/freezer I use about 10Ah of 12V power each day which corresponds to an average of  two hours per day listening/talking on HF (typically 25W), one or two hours notebook computer use, an hour of  MP3 player use and two to four hours of LED lighting at 0A5. I used a low cost watt/power meter for the above measurements (eBay about $40).

Lighting: the light from the campfire is good but, alas, sometimes I need more. For some years I have used a Coleman Dual Fuel pressure lamp but recently switched to LED lamps which consume 0A5 each and produce good light. I use one "cold" white lamp to illuminate the cooking area, this is excellent for highlighting detail but harsh on the eyes. I use a second "warm" white lamp to illuminate the main camp area, the warm white is softer on the eye. Around the camp I use a quality LED headlamp which is brilliant - in all senses :)

Note: eBay offers many LED floodlights advertised in various wattages from 10W to 50W+. I use two 10W lamps... except they are not 10W! Each lamp consumes about 600mA which makes them 7.2W lamps - beware, some examples will consume less than this (one "10W" lamp I bought consumed 200mA = 2.4W!), if they consume less than 500mA ask the supplier to replace it.

As the Pactor modem suggests, I have e-mail over HF capability and would be happy to receive an e-mail from you when I'm bush - I'm sure you can work out the e-mail address. Please do not send attachments or photographs, quote my own e-mail back to me, use HTML e-mail or put some long bandwidth hogging company disclaimer in there - text up to any sensible length is fine - keep in mind that e-mail over HF has about the same bandwidth as a 1200 baud modem and not the 20,000,000 baud of a broadband connection (hint: Google "WinLink").

Because I travel alone and usually go into remote areas well outside the reach of mobile phones and a long way from habitation I also take a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) with me (KTI PLB). In the event of a life threatening emergency and if there is no other option I can trigger this device to alert Search and Rescue that I'm injured or seriously incapacitated. Nevertheless, one needs to keep in mind that, in many cases, it will take S&R perhaps 24 hours to reach a person - a bite from a Brown snake will kill before then. Those of us who choose to travel in this manner need to be responsible for ourselves and not expect others to rescue us or risk themselves because of our decisions. When I go bush I take the attitude that "I'm on my own" - and I'm very comfortable with that and I'd far rather die in the bush than in a nursing home.

When I'm at home you'll usually find me on the VK3REC 2m repeater (147.775MHz in, 147.175MHz out - 5pm to 7pm is the best time to try) and when I'm bush the schedule page gives details.