The new OpenSpot3 has come out with an internal battery. You might ask why? Well there is two common issues that is mostly raised with almost all hot spots. One is the range – I have addressed this in my BlueDV post if you want to make your own long range hotspot. However the other issue is it isn’t very portable.
I have two OpenSpot2 hotspots and enjoy them very much. I can cross modes easily all by using the one radio. You used to have to get one radio per band which was a lot more expensive. Anyway I can take the OpenSpot2 in the car and plug it into the car battery and run it via my mobile phone which works well. However what if I want to go for a bike ride or walk without the car?
The main issue is not having the battery of the car when you walk or ride your bike. This is perhaps one reason why the OpenSpot3 has an internal battery. For the rest of us, you can still do it.
Below is a picture of my setup. I took this picture in outback South Australia. At the top of the picture is a small pocket size battery which actually has two USB plugs, so I could plug in my HotSpot and my mobile phone. It even has a torch on it and has a lot of charge (15,000 mAh 2.4 Amp) so it wasn’t the cheapest one available. I could have gone a lot cheaper however we also used this battery pack for other things while we were in remote Australia for several days.
To the left of the photo is my GD-77, my hotspot and my phone. With this setup, I was able to talk the world!
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VK3TBS 
I’ve been thinking of getting a hotspot. But I’ve got pretty good DMR coverage in DeKalb County, GA.
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No worries mate. Yes if you live near a repeater you may not need one. The benefit of a hotspot is you can do what you want without needing to wait for the repeater to be free. You can cross mode also on a hotspot. Enjoy and thanks for the comment. Will listen out for you on the air
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