George,
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No reason at all why a QMX should not work inside a tent.? How big is your tent? Are you talking about a camping tent, or something like a pavilion or picnic table shelter?? Most camping tent don't even have enough room to stand up in.
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Your antenna will be limited by the height of your tent. As you know the most important part of your station is the antenna. No doubt you can get something to work inside your tent, but I think you'd be better served with an outside antenna.
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I do a lot of POTA.? My two go to antennas are an EFHW and a QRP Guys tri-band vertical. The vertical is held up by a 5.6 meter telescopic "squid" fishing pole. I have multiple tuned wires for the EFHW, although the 40 m wire will acceptably handle 40, 20, and 15 meters without needing a tuner. The tri-band vertical is also a resonant antenna and it covers 40, 30, and 20--but with switching out a few more tuned wires, it will handle 17, 15, 12, and 10 as well.
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Which antenna I set up depends on the activation location. I do a lot of POTA activations at Cape Lookout National Seashore--no trees on the seashore--so I use the vertical held in a sand spike.? I activate another location where the ground is too rocky to put in a ground spike. That's where I need to use the EFHW and a throw line to hang it in a tree.
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My activations are all CW QRP at 5 watts, but I don't feel handicapped. About 5% of my QSOs at Cape Lookout are DX. I've worked the British Isles, Europe, VK land, Argentina, the Caribbean, Chile, Alaska, Hawaii and more, on 20 meters.
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Some 95% of POTA operators are Hunters. Only about 5% are activators. With a 19 times more Hunters than Activators, and spotting on POTA.app, you will seldom have difficulty getting at least 10 QSOs for an activation.? The hunters will nearly always have a better antenna and be using more power than you are. They'll assume that if they can hear you, they can work you. And they're right! My sent RSTs run 2 or 3 S-Units higher than what I get back with my 5 watts, but we still make contacts, and lots of them.? But that's no reason to use a compromised antenna if you don't need to.
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For the record, I think both the EFHW and the tri-band vertical work equally well. I haven't noticed any advantage with either one. Again, which one I use depends upon local conditions. I make my own 49:1 transformers, and since I only use QRP, they can be small and light. For that reason, when I traveled to England and Ireland last September, I took the 30 and 40 meter EFHW antennas, my low band QMX, my 20m QCX, and the rest. Even though the telescopic fish pole collapses to 22", and weighs about 10 ounces, I didn't take the tri-band vertical.
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My time was limited, as my family was waiting for me. I ended up with 10 QSOs over 3 attempts, all on 20m. Even though I spotted myself on POTA.app, I don't know how much the Europeans check POTA Spots.? My early afternoon operating times translated to 7-9pm on the east coast, where they could have noticed my spots. And finally, I think most of the European CW activity was on a lower segment of the band than where I was used to calling CQ? POTA.?? Too bad that didn't occur to me at the time.
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All the best, and good luck.? Feel free to PM me if I can be of help to you with further questions.
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Jack N8EU
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