All the "little" things

So, having watched some videos online, for instance on the Backpacker Mag site, I'm now wondering... Do I need all this stuff or is it overkill?

I've seen a video in which waist strap pack buckles were replaced. (I wasn't planning to pack any.)

I've also heard of tents, packs, rain gear, etc. ripping. I saw someone mention Tenacious Tape. Looks good. (Also, the poster mentioned still carrying duct tape in addition and I'm curious as to the need for both.)

Then there are repair kits for the thermarest.

And I think, but can't swear to this, that sometimes I've heard that people carry an extra tent pole in case one breaks. I don't know if the tent my fellow campers are packing comes with those aluminum tubes you can put over a broken tent pole. Something I need to find out.

I have on my packing list 50 feet of cord, but I know others are bringing cord to hang the bear bag. So... should I bring some, too? It's obviously really light weight, but I don't know if it's necessary (maybe it has so many uses it's worth bringing, maybe not?) and I don't want to get into the habit of throwing all kinds of extra stuff in my pack just because "it hardly weighs anything..." (because eventually, even a ton of things that hardly weigh anything are going to add up, right?!).

So, what do you never leave home without? Stuff like replacement buckles, for instance?

And how much redundancy do you aim for with your fellow hikers? To what degree do you concern yourself with "well, if mike's pack went down the river..." type scenarios? I don't feel I have a lot of wiggle room with my weight in terms of my comfort at this point such that I cam afford to be totally self-reliant, but I don't want to be stupid, either. I know it's common to split the weight of a tent, etc. What's the feeling on this gear sharing in terms of risk versus reward? What things would you feel comfortable having as shared gear and which things do you want to be carrying, even if all your buddies are already carrying them, too? (I don't mean personal gear, such as clothing, toiletries, etc., I mean more like group FAK, tent, cook stove, bear bag etc.)

Hope this makes sense. Thanks in advance.

MTA: Also, a radio?

I do not carry replacement anything - I figure if my tent pole breaks I'll either use my trekking poles and/or rope or pretend it is a bivy. I do not take a tent repair kit, though I do take a repair kit for my sleeping bad. I do not take replacement buckles etc, though I have some parachute cord and duct tape. I carry my own sleeping bag and my own (redundant) fire making items, and some food. I try to make sure I have enough of the kit to survive - so if the hubby lost his pack down the river we could still make it out - might be a bit hungry or damp, but survivable.

HTH

Like Heather, I don't take spare buckles or tent poles, but you have to consider in regards to the trip you're taking and experience with the gear you're bringing.

Two kinds of tape? I seldom ever use the tape I bring.

Three people carrying 50ft of cord each? Not if you all intend on staying together.

Same with a first-aid kit. Take more stuff maybe, but only take one kit.

A radio? I never brought one for years. About 10 years ago a I got a walkie-talkie with a built-in NOAA weather radio and I've brought that on a few trips when I was with a group and could share some other gear. But it was the weather info I wanted, not the walkie-talkie.

Redundancy... a couple spare lighters, some extra LED lighting, an SOL emergency blanket, a couple clif bars, a small knife, reading glasses. Off the top of my head, that's about it.

I would first concentrate on the gear that only you will use, then discuss with the rest of your group what you can share and what of that you will be carrying. If you have some headroom in your pack after all that's loaded, add a few luxuries for yourself and enjoy them while you're out there

I carry 3 Bic lighters. Other than that my son and I don't carry replacement anything.

We share a stove, tent, water filter and a .75 liter pot.

If things break, which they seldom do, we do without.

Most of that little ("just because it might possibly happen") stuff you can leave behind. You unnecessarily complicate life by trying to prepare for any contingency that has a less than 0.1 percent chance of happening--the Chicken Little scenario. In most cases you can improvise! Last summer one side of my hip belt buckle was missing at the trailhead, so I just removed the other side and tied the belt ends in a square knot. It worked just fine. If you break a tent pole, you can usually fix it with duct tape (do take 2-3 feet of that; it's also for first aid and other uses). If not, there are usually sticks around. The same is true of tent stakes. With the sleeping pad repair kit, which usually contains enough for several patches, just take enough for one.

Just make sure you have your "Ten" Essentials with you and you can survive most anything.

Do coordinate with the rest of your party! While there's no need for each of you to carry 50 feet of cord, you do want to make sure that at least one person brings it!

well said.

For fixes and repairs in the field it is usually enough to just get it back to use-able condition until one gets home to do a proper job.

A sewing kit and duct tape. Anything else will either be fashioned from nature ( a tent pole ) or done without.

And of the two, I've found the sewing kit the one that I actually use (particularly if barbed wire fences are to be crossed along the way). Duct tape rarely, but a couple of times.

Sewing kit: I suggest that the ideal kit is a sewing needle, and the dental floss that you are perhaps carrying anyway.

I take the air mattress repair kit, because actually sleeping is on my list of essentials. I've never once used it but about the time I leave it out, I'll need it...

My tent uses trekking poles. I have had one airheaded occasion where I left one pole in the car - so I used the length of mason line I keep in the emergency kit to string up the peak of the tent from a tree. Mason line weighs hardly anything and it will work in a pinch. But it tangles easy.

I use Zing It for bear bag line. I've not had a reason to carry paracord in a long time.




who are you hoping to talk to with it? Or do you mean the other kind - FM/AM?

The radios that work best are high band, which you can't just pick up and use since they rely on towers and regulated channels. A small ham radio would be the ticket. You'd need an operator's license.

FRS models you get at the store have extremely limited range - I've had them fail when the two radios were half a mile apart. Depends on the terrain. Using them with large parties of hikers in the past, it's had its ups and downs.

I had the same problem with the small FRS radios... However, I found a work around. While I have my ham license you could do this with out one. I was able to take my Yaesu VX-8R radio and "modify it" to transmit on the FRS frequencies... The FRS radios you buy at wall mart and other stores can only output 0.5watts.... my VX-8R can push a full 5.0 watts Talk about range. Ive been able to use it with other FRS radios at up to 10 miles!!! I also put on a high gain antenna to allow me to pick up their weak signal. It may not be legal but in the back country there aren't that many radio nazis around to yell at your for it and even at 5 watts the range is limited to about 10-20 miles

JUST FYI getting your Technician Class License is a super easy. I studied for 4 days took the test and didn't miss a single question.

Some of the early VX-1's transmit out of band because of a Yaesu oversight. Mine will. VX-2's won't. Most ham talkies can be easily modified, with the blessings of the manufacturer, for 1st responders wishing to use the public service bands.
HF has made contact for me 100% of the time, 20 meters, on penlight batteries and a chunk of wire in the trees. There are some very light weight QRP (low power) radios out there now. I primarily use Morse code, which always gets through. Easy to learn. There is no code requirement (sadly!) for ham licenses. $15 and a 35 question test will get you a Technician license for use with VHF/UHF radios. HF will require another 35 question test.
A standard....and very tiny...ham walkie talkie will give you communications on at east two frequency bands, AM/FM/Weather, Shortwave, in a neat little package the size of a cell phone.

As far as spare stuff goes....nope. Pointless if you've worked to achieve 'double duty' in your equipment.

DieselTwitch, have a look at the "make your own gear" section of this website and build the backpacker yagi I designed.
2.1 ounces if you build it to my specs. The pattern chart is self explanatory as to "why".

I've seen many home built yagi's but Ill have to check yours out! 2.1 ounces... wow!!, I actually own a Arrow II it has 3 VHF Elements and 7 UHF. I've made many contactors with the ISS with it and my HT. it however weights in at 19oz

I agree! morse should be a requirement again! I know it but Im not fast by any means!

My VX-8R is super easy to modify. just removed 1 resistor that is very nicely placed in such a spot that it take about 10 min to get it out of band.

I want a good HF setup but holly cow are the radios $$$ and the big problem is that the person on the other side has to have an HF radio. By transmuting on FRS with more power I know i can reach just about any one with a radio and they don't need to spend a pocket load of cash to do it.

Yup, most backpackables are expensive. I like kits and my all time favorite trail radio is an MFJ QRP Cub on 20m. It's a $90 kit and works really well. It only does the 20m ham band though.
If you have an unlimited wallet, the Elecraft KX3 is the best thing I've seen and it's about to have a 2m module soon. Its about as good as a trail radio can get. I usually haul a VX-2 and the MFJ. I've worked the world from campsites on 1 watt, no problem and have always made contact. Can't say that for uhf/vhf.

My VX-5 is easy to modify. Yaesu has instructions for it....one little solder ball jumper to clip and that's it.
Problem around here is the local municipalities have gone to digital trunk and analog no longer works. They gave me a city radio for SAR/Storm spotter work, else I'd never hear a thing.

No joke, UHF and VHF are very limited but they do serve a valuable purpose.

I'm looking to buy the FT-817 (HF(6M), UHF & VHF (2M & 70CM) Modded the radio will work 1.8-33 MHz, 33 -56 MHz, 140-154 MHz & 420-470Mhz
Its a great light weight multi mode radio and is battery (either 8x AA or Ni-Cd) powered making it just that much easier to carry, it also weights about 45 oz.
Still a 700$ radio and after all the rest of the gear $1,500

I just have to find a good field antenna setup for the radio.

I've got quite a bit of experience with the 817. If you go through the menu and shut down everything that requires power, and run the HF side at 1 watt, you can make the batteries last quite a while. It can be a power hog....but it's a heck of a little radio. Folks who buy them usually won't sell 'em.

Back country antennas I use:
1) 1/2 wave wire against a 1/4 wave counterpoise. I built a tuner from a poly-varicon cap and a hand wound coil with taps, all in an Altoids tin. 24 ga. wire, no coax except between radio and tuner. This is the lightest system I've come up with.
2) Pre-cut, tuned, inverted "V" with RG-174U coax. Light, but a one band antenna. Super easy setup, no tuner needed if you only work one band (which I usually do).
3) kite hoisted long wire. I use another homemade L-C network tuner with 200ft. of 28ga. wire, and a pocket parafoil kite. This one requires a 1 meg ohm bleed resistor to ground or you'll fry the radio from static discharg. It's the most fun of the three antennas I've hiked with.

Didn't mean to hijack this post....get two hams talking and things go downhill from there.LOL

Thanks for the advice on the antennas. I'll have to check that out. I plan on getting involved with SAR, ARRES and a few other agencies for emergencies, forest fires, events.... I also ride a dirt bike that I can use to get in to the back country for thing like that. I was looking at some wires that that cover 80 thru 10. Im still new to HF and learning more about antennas and all the lingo. That is one thing I hate about HAM operators of old. there is plenty of stuff out there for hams but information on what it all does and mean.... for example it took me a while to figure out what an ATU is or what DSP does....

I tried starting a new thread just for hams but either it needs approval or i don't have enough good standing to post a thread.

Haha I found it, I must have posted in the wrong area and they kindly moved it for me! Its under the backcountry gadgets section.

Yes, one of us mod types <wave> moved it to the approriate area.

Apologies, when I do that I usually push the magic button that leaves a little pointer where you posted it originally for a short while. However my spamkilling habits got the best of me and I didn't pick that before moving it.

Dryer said," I primarily use Morse code"

My great great grandfathers cousin (I think I got that right)was Samuel FB Morse and he is buried in my families cemetary in Illinois. I do believe that somehow I got his genes.

As far as high bands, and low bands etc, this is pretty technically unsophisticated talk. Frequencies are more important. Depending on whose definition HF can go up to 30 MHz. Or if I say microwave, thats just a general definition of being over a GHz - but what does it mean? nothing.

So that said - you will tend to get only line of sight propogation of radio signals as they approach 100 MHz or higher - the FM station frequency - but still this is VHF - a definition from another time when it was considered very high frequency..

Radios operating below 20 MHz - the traditional ham bands, can send signals over the horizon and often all the way around the world with very little power. They would be the frequency of choice to get a signal out of a valley, however they are probably not digital and may not have as good of reciever electronics as more modern high frequency digital radios.

Anyway a radio is useless without an antenna and improving your antenna gain and directionality is probably more important than frequency range or output power.
Jim

Well...It means the difference and weight of a 240 ft. piece of wire vs. a 1/2 inch piece of wire.

Jim, these days the ham bands run from VLF Experimental, 160m through laser light. A huge swath of RF real estate. I have an HF digital set on my desk now that takes/repeats calls automatically from all over the world. Plus, I have a digital trunk city radio for SAR/Storm spotting. All that said, give me analog. It requires much less power and weak signals are copyable, vs. digital which might be unreadable.
I've found 14mhz to be an all round backcountry band, that works day and night, requiring the least amount of junk to haul. A VHF/UHF talkie equipped with a yagi hi-gain antenna, from a mountain top will go hundreds of miles. In a valley or surrounded by rock, practically nowhere. That's the fun of the "radio art"....using the tools and knowledge to make contact, no matter where you are, most of the time.
A cell phone these days might go 20 miles to a tower before phase error makes it impossible. Analog phones weren't that way and could go full line of sight.

I seem to remember you did quite a bit of antenna work in the past.

One of these days Dryer.. I'm gonna make it down there for a hike in spider country with you, and go radio fiddling - I'd love to get something SUL that I could communicate with up here.

Yeah, I know I'd have to get a HAM license then...

Hey we had radios at the lab that the FCC couldn't track, but then neither could other hams... but anyway we didn't need a license ha ha.

No smoke signal is the way, especially down there where Dryer lives.

Jim