If you like to take to the hills now and then and enjoy low power (QRP) h.f operating, why not combine the two? Not only do you benefit from exercise,great views and fresh air, but h.f operating can be improved. A remote location can be free of much of the man-made electrical noise (QRM) that you may be subjected to at your home location (QTH). It also offers opportunities to be free from obstructions that reflect or absorb that all important signal.
But what type of aerial do you use?
One obvious solution is to use a wire aerial. It’s not such a big effort to take a length of wire up a hill. The bigger question however is how do you get it up in the air (without the scafolding poles used at home (QTH)). The answer for many of the Summit On the Air (SOTA) enthusiasts is a telescopic glass fibre fishing pole. In a collapsed state this can be small (approx 1m (long) and easily 10m (33ft) when fully extended.
Links to YouTube videos below show the one man setup procedure for an h.f Inverted-V wire-dipole and a Ground Plane vertical. Even though these have been prepared by Richard Newstead of SOTABEAMS to demonstrate antenna kits supplied by his company, his one-man setup procedure is fairly generic. Other arrangements are of course possible such as the End-fed random wire aerial.
Fishing pole for inverted V dipole.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI6IRgQLokk
Fishing pole for 20m band, ground Plane Vertical Aerial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny_PM6NlCvI
Hopefully that’s all you need to start thinking about the possibilities of QRP portable operating and even SOTA activation.