Any ham radio operators out there who also are Bush Pilots ?

I have not been on the air in ages with my ham license although I still do maintain my license and one by two call. I was wondering what newer radios...either UHF, VHF, or HF folks are plugging into their panel ? Even if not used in the plane while flying, I think operating remotely in the field with portable radio gear from exotic locations would be way cool. I guess with solid state now, a kilowatt linear amplifier would not be a problem.

I used to operate low power morse code ( CW QRP ) so my radio rig is tiny, and copper wire for a dipole or random long wire with matching tuner would weigh next to nothing.

For years, I flew airplanes in AK with HF radios. The radios back then were pretty heavy, but the biggest issue was getting an antenna of the proper length for several frequencies that we operated on. In the Cessnas and Cubs, we used trailing wire antennas....and I have lots of stories of those miserable devices......like 120 feet of long wire all bunched up in the back seat of a Cub after the friction knob on the reel jumped over into the back seat.....etc.

On the Beaver, we used a long wire from fuselage roof on top of cabin to the tail, then to one wing tip. Worked fine, but then you needed a tuner to tune the antenna, and that was somewhat of a pain in the arse as well. At least you didn't have to remember to reel the damn thing in prior to landing...

When I was in Kodiak, I could hardly ever talk to our office in town....too close. But, I could talk to the Marine Operator at KMI in San Francisco any time, crystal clear.

I'm sure there's some much more compact and lightweight HF equipment out there these days....the folks who ferry across the pond use HF and do temporary installs.

That said, I'll bet that getting FAA approval on an HF radio might be a challenge, depending on where you live.

Thankfully, satellite telephones are now available, so I sincerely hope I never have to use an HF again.

MTV

One way to get sign off is to have marine channels programmed. We got approval in Alaska often for that. The FAA is used to that at least around the coast. Remember also, there is no TSO for any FM radio in aircraft. So they can't hold you up on that.
I worked an Iditarod volunteer on 2 meters from 165 miles with 1 watt. Of course the altitude helped.
MTV, your fond memories of reeling in and out the wire made me laugh. The mechs would be really pissy when I landed the super cub and forgot the wire. Japan came through on 4 MHz pretty good too.
KL7KA

I haven't brought a radio flying for voice, but have done a fair amount with APRS with a Micro-Trak. Around here once off the ground, with a VHF rig and just a couple of watts you can easily hit repeaters within 100 miles. I'd think a simple dual-band 2m/440 VHF radio would work great.

What scottf said. I have a microtrak APRS (automated position reporting system) in my airplane that works great (most of the time anyway). Antenna is in the wingtip (fiberglass) and the transmitter is the size of a cigarette pack. I easily get hits out 100 miles when at a few thousand AGL, and most of the time get good hits from down low. It requires digital repeaters which are pretty common in the lower 48 and halfway up into Canada. Further north in Canada is much less likely to find a repeater, but I've gotten signal out from east-central Yukon. Haven't flown it in AK, so don't know what sort of repeaters are there. This works almost as well as a spot for keeping track of location, and it's all automatically posted on the internet. Of course, you can just turn it off if you don't want to be tracked . A ham license is required, but its pretty easy to pick up a license. I don't know of anyone using this system for voice.

One thing I really like about the micro-trak over the spot is that it provides GPS heading, altitude, and speed and the tracking can be much more granular if configured to be. They also have the smarts to increase the transmission frequency during turns so you really get a good picture of what the plane is doing in real time.

Here is a example of a ICOM 706 mounted into a Bearhawk panel. Not sure who's it is, was at SNF a few years ago.

...guess I gotta learn how to resize pictures.

@ Pouellette

Wow. What a nice Bearhawk Panel. I have ancient ham radio gear, but if and when I get a bush plane, Ill get the latest ham gear with remote mount heads, etc.

Beautiful picture, whatever the size

Can you post some pics of your actual plane? Engine??