Going portable on HF operating has become increasingly popular. I got a Yaesu FT-891 about a year ago. It’s in a small case with a Bienno Life4Po 20ah battery in a Red Oxx Lil Roy zippered case. They make a great combo. I have a number of wire antennas that get thrown up in trees. And, I have the MFJ Big Stick Antenna that I pushed my friend Martin to build while the dipole version, the Big Ear, was being developed. The Big Stick can go QRP to QRO in the right setup.
But I always like to try new ones! The posts on blogs and Youtube videos illustrating the Take-It-Along (TIA) vertical by Wolfe River Coils are intriguing. The loading coils themselves appear superbly manufactured. The whip is a shorter one than the MFJ stainless steel telescoping whip. It’s black in appearance which has some advantages in the landscape setting. Wolf River has a machined biscuit-shaped mounting point for the whip and screw-in aluminum legs which form a base tripod. Clever! This biscuit also has a connection for counterpoise wires. It’s also a lightweight package for portable carrying. More details can be found at the company’s website at this link. A review of several antennas by Wolf River Coils appeared in the July 2017 issue of QST.
So I bought one and it arrived very shortly, packaged well and with obvious care for the customer. Everything I expected was in the package. So I took it out to my patio, quickly assembled it. (It’s very, very difficult to mess this part up!) I carried my SARK-110 Vector Network Analyzer along to measure the resonance and SWR metrics on the TIA. See my previous blog post on this VNA and an upgrade kit I added as well as sark110.com for details on the analyzer itself.
Here are some pictures of the final temporary setup on my patio. The first is of the parts as well as an inexpensive padded camera tripod bag I bought to carry the TIA and associated items ($16 on eBay).
Parts of TIA Vertical and Camera Tripod Bag 
TIA Assembled on concrete patio 
More distant view of TIA with counterpoise 
Antenna analyzers (MFJ-269 and SARK-110) at the ready!
The whole assembly is lightweight but I didn’t fear that wind would blow it over easily. It could but not with the breezes off of the Barnett Reservoir just a hundred yards away. The materials are of very good quality, including the counterpoise wires and connectors. Very nice job, Wolf River Coils!
So how did it tuneup? I used both the MFJ-269 and the SARK-110 with very good results. The coil harness for contacts is a very precise design. I learned that I can move the connector with the wire vertically (up-and-down) to change resonance points but also horizontally to change the precise point in the coil. It made a difference! The supplied counterpoise wires work fine. I made a set of four counterpoise wires for each of the bands that I usually work for my MFJ Big Stick (their supplied wires are a tad too stiff for my carry bag but they’ll never wear out!). I used those with the TIA and I couldn’t really measure much of a consistent difference between those and the supplied counterpoise by Wolf River Coils.
Frequency sweep of the 80 meter band with VSWR and Z from SARK-110 output. SWR < 1.5 at about 3.85 mhz
I tuned the TIA up to an acceptable SWR from the 80 meter band to 10 meters with great success. The metal patio furniture probably caused some loading but nothing that was very noticeable. All in all, I’m very happy with my acquisition. It’s been a useful portable antenna that I “take along” with me to the Old Trace Park next door, just off of the famous U.S. Park Service property, the Natchez Trace. This is a recommended antenna system for portable operators who are looking for a vertical to be used in this fashion.