I am looking for a small portable laptop about the size of a DVD player,
with minimum Hard drive size and some memory, something I can load XP on,
and that has a USB port, has a close to possible full size keybd, a sound
card, and runs on 12v battery and/or on a 12v power cord I can plug into a
cigarette lighter.

I want to be able to run some of the HAM digital modes while in the field
and don't want to schlep a heavy laptop around.

I heard that something like this might be available, for a street price of
less than or around $250.00, but I have lost the reference page to it.

73's

I saw the very same thing a few weeks ago in the news paper on sale at
Fry's for just about $250 w/o software. I was unable to locate it on
their website, and I don't remember the manufacturer name.

These little boxes open up a whole new world if you ask me. They are
not much bigger than a DVD drive, are powered by 12V DC and draw a bit
over 1 amp. They would make a cool station computer and take up very
little space. They could operate off of battery power easily and are
quite capable machines.

-= bob =-

On Mar 20, 12:41 pm, "Howard W3CQH" wrote:
I am looking for a small portable laptop about the size of a DVD player,
with minimum Hard drive size and some memory, something I can load XP on,
and that has a USB port, has a close to possible full size keybd, a sound
card, and runs on 12v battery and/or on a 12v power cord I can plug into a
cigarette lighter.

I want to be able to run some of the HAM digital modes while in the field
and don't want to schlep a heavy laptop around.

I heard that something like this might be available, for a street price of
less than or around $250.00, but I have lost the reference page to it.

73's

Oh,

One more thing I saw in QST you might be interested in. Some guys
have a "build it yourself" portable device that was set up to do some
HF digital stuff. It was based on a couple of PIC's and if I remember
right could be built for less than your $250. You just plug in a
keyboard and wire the thing to your portable radio and volia PSK is
yours w/o a computer.

Searching for it on the ARRL's website says it's on Page 35 of the
March 2008 issue of QST.

On Mar 20, 12:41 pm, "Howard W3CQH" wrote:

I want to be able to run some of the HAM digital modes while in the field
and don't want to schlep a heavy laptop around.

Howard W3CQH wrote:
I am looking for a small portable laptop about the size of a DVD player,
with minimum Hard drive size and some memory, something I can load XP on,
and that has a USB port, has a close to possible full size keybd, a sound
card, and runs on 12v battery and/or on a 12v power cord I can plug into a
cigarette lighter.

I want to be able to run some of the HAM digital modes while in the field
and don't want to schlep a heavy laptop around.

I heard that something like this might be available, for a street price of
less than or around $250.00, but I have lost the reference page to it.

73's

Hi Howard,

Many laptop AC power supplies produce about 16VDC. For Field Day use, I
picked up a used laptop of this type for about $380. A coworker (who's a
whiz with switching regulators) designed a boost switching regulator that
will handle up to about 4.5A load:
http://www.geocities.com/bswadener/t...wer_Supply.pdf It'll
maintain the output with as little as 11VDC input. As checked with a
spectrum analyzer, it produces no noticeable noise.

73,
Bryan WA7PRC

I wonder if you are thinking of the XP version of the Asus EEE PC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC

Tom