Here I am operating Picnic Table Portable again! The radio is the Yaesu FT 817ND at 2.5 watts driving an HF Packer amplifier, putting about 35 watts into a MP-1 portable vertical antenna made by SuperAntennas.

I built the amplifier from a kit and the antenna I modified slightly from its stock design. I've added four 1/4 wave counterpoises on 20 meters and raised the coil by adding two extra base sections. On 20 and 40 meters, I use an MFJ 10 foot telescopic whip. On 80, 17, 15, 12, and 10, I use the stock 4.5 foot whip and adjust the counterpoise length accordingly.

The radio is powered by either an internal battery pack, or by a 9aH AGM battery, which is also used to power the amplifier. During the day, I can keep the battery topped off by using a 26 watt foldable solar panel to provide about 1.5 amps of current to the battery via a charge controller.

I recently built a 100 watt wind turbine generator and it is still in beta stage. I also built a simple voltage regulation DC to DC converter that outputs 15v into a battery, designed around the LM2577T-15 chip. There is usually not enough wind around here to get 15v + out of the turbine (except when you are near the Mayor's office, then there is lots of hot air), but 5 volts is easily attained. This circuit converts an input range of 3.5v to 37v and regulates the output to 15v.