Chameleon EMCOMM III Portable
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| Frequency | 1.8-55 MHz continuous per the manual (160-6 m); a tuner or coupler may be required in some configurations |
| TX power | 100 W (product page: 100 W SSB / 50 W CW / 25 W high-duty digital; current manual: 50 W continuous (CW/AM/FM/RTTY) + 100 W intermittent (SSB and SSB-based digital) - the two disagree on digital; treat 25 W high-duty digital as the safe operational limit) |
| Modes | SSB, CW, AM, FM, digital |
| Connector | SO-239 (UHF female) on the EMCOMM III matching box (same box as the Base version) |
| feedpoint | CHA EMCOMM III matching box, 5:1 unun, SO-239; coax not included (RFI-choked coax sold as accessory) |
Estimated (unverified): introduction year of the EMCOMM III line (mid-2010s); net weight (manufacturer docs disagree: ~1 lb manual vs 1.5 lb product page)
A complete HF wire antenna that weighs a pound and a half and rides in a cargo pocket: radiator, counterpoise, and matching box, deployable in fifteen minutes from a tree limb or a painter's pole. The four documented configurations cover everything from regional NVIS to DX slopers, the wire is the company's military-grade Kevlar PTFE stock, and the included counterpoise makes it less ground-dependent than most end-feds in the field.
100 W SSB and just 25 W on continuous digital modes - this is a field antenna for field radios, and FT8 at full rig power will cook the rating. A tuner is needed across much of the range, performance varies strongly with configuration and height, and coax with a choke costs extra. The manufacturer itself points buyers needing genuine mil-spec hardware to its ruggedized partner versions.
The backpack edition of Chameleon's emergency wire: everything an end-fed needs in 1.5 pounds, honest about its power limits and its consumer-grade niche. For POTA, field exercises, and go-kits it is exactly right; base stations should look at its bigger sibling.
The EMCOMM III Portable is the man-pack member of Chameleon Antenna's emergency wire family, and it opens with a disclaimer you rarely see in ham marketing: this version is not suitable for military use. The Sparks, Nevada company sells ruggedized editions of its designs through a partnership with Shakespeare for customers whose gear gets dropped from vehicles; this one is the civilian build, for hikers, campers, POTA operators, and the emergency-communications volunteers who make up the rest of Chameleon's customer base.
The kit is three things on two winders: 73 feet of tinned-copper, Kevlar-core, PTFE-insulated radiator, a 25-foot counterpoise, and the same 5:1 unun matching box the company uses on its base-station version. The included counterpoise is a quiet advantage over the EMCOMM III Base, which expects you to work against ground or structure; in the field, where soil quality is a lottery, carrying your own other-half-of-the-antenna pays off. The manual documents four deployments with a recommended 25 feet of height: inverted-L and sloping wire for general medium-to-long range, an end-fed inverted-V when only one support exists, and a deliberately low horizontal run for NVIS — the 30-to-400-mile regional propagation that disaster nets actually run on.
The ratings are sized for the mission: 100 W SSB, 50 W CW, and — per the product page — 25 W for high-duty-cycle digital, a number worth reading twice if your field radio runs FT8 at a full hundred watts. (The current manual words it differently, 50 W continuous and 100 W intermittent; when manufacturer documents disagree, run the conservative figure.) Coverage is 1.8 through 55 MHz continuous with measured SWR between 1.3 and 2.0:1 in the manual's test table, a tuner sometimes still required by configuration, and the whole kit weighs in around a pound — the page says a pound and a half — and deploys in under fifteen minutes. Nothing here is exotic; it is an end-fed wire with a good transformer, executed in materials that shrug off weather and abuse.
The honest comparison: a resonant end-fed half-wave like the EFHW-4010 needs no tuner on its design bands and radiates a little better per watt, but covers fewer bands and cares about its length. The EMCOMM III Portable trades that resonant efficiency for go-anywhere flexibility — any frequency, any support, any configuration, fifteen minutes. For a go-kit that has to work wherever the truck stops, that is the right trade.