Portable Ham Radio Pack Calculator

October 2026

What’s the real weight-to-range tradeoff on a portable HF setup? There isn’t a single number — it depends on the radio, the antenna, the battery, and the band — so instead of writing one more “here’s my pack” post, I built a calculator.

Pick a radio, antenna, battery, and bag, and it adds up the real weight, estimates operating time from each radio’s real current-draw specs (not a guess), and shows a cited min/nominal/max range for every band that radio covers.

This is a work in progress. Every number carries its own citation — manufacturer spec, my own measured gear, or a real post of mine — some of those citations are direct measurements, some are reasoned estimates between two measured points, and the tool says which is which. Anywhere a value isn’t usable it flags that instead of guessing. I’m still filling gaps and double-checking a few figures.