Coming Soon?! POTA ARRAY

I know I have been quiet for a few months. I have been working on two projects which will add to the products we have available. The first of which is the POTA ARRAY - built to be portable and lightweight. It is a 100watt version of the full legal limit 2 element array kits we sell. I am in final testing phases now and there are soon to be 10 pre-production units that will be available. These are functional prototypes. We are finishing the final testing of the units and hope to be in production before the end of the year. Price point is yet to be determined but will be soon.

The new POTA controller (pictured below) is 3.5" (88mm) wide x 5" (124mm) long x 1.5" (38mm) tall. the case is extruded aluminum like its big brother, with PCB faceplates. Instead of the rotatable directional switch to save weight and size we installed a 3-way (on-on-on) toggle switch. We also changed the size on the power button.

ON the rear of the unit instead of a round GX type aircraft connector we changed to a modular RJ-11 jack which reduced costs, increased compatibility and reliability.

Prototype POTA ARRAY controller

The relay switching network (pictured below) was redesigned to reduce the size and the weight, to become portable. Although not as robust an enclosure, it fits the bill for portable operations. The enclosure is ABS plastic and will have a labeled faceplate instead of the one pictured below. The box is 5.14" (130mm) long x 3.25" (82.55mm) wide and 1.56" (39mm) tall. Five SO-239 connectors are utilized for the connections for the element feedlines, delay line and the transmitter feedline. There is also a modular rj-11 jack for the control connection.

Prototype POTA relay switching network

The phasing cables will be lighter weight RG-8X, RG-6 or similar cable. The kits will come fully assembled, with coax phasing cables and 50ft RJ-11/RJ11 control cable. I will also be including a 17'-4" (20M) and a 33'-6" (40M) piece of paracord that will eliminate the need to drag a measuring tape around with the kit to space the elements. We will be offering other band kits for 10m,15 and 17m on a custom order basis.

This is meant to be used with the new collapsible whip style antennas. I have had good results with the 17.75ft whips for 20m from Alpha Antenna and the 34.5Ft whips for 40m from Alpha as well. Or the DX Commander Expedition model poles and wire elements for the radiators. There are some new carbon fiber collapsible antennas from Gabil I am waiting to get my hands on to do testing, it might make a great SOTA kit.

I hope you all are as excited to see this come to market as I am. Finally, an easy way to get gain in the wild.

If you are interested in one of the pre-production models please reach out to me via e-mail: john@performancezarrays.com and we will send an e-mail with the pre-production pricing.

Best 73 to you all

John Gendron, NJ4Z