Fixed versus Portable Operation

Most of my ham radio life I've lived in a place where I have been able to have some sort of ham radio antenna. The house that I am currently living in, I can't.That's OK. I have options. I can go on DXpeditions or operate from Multi stations here on the West Coast. Or go portable. A "100-pound DXpedition" from the United States.To be fair, operating from a fixed location has a lot of advantages. Mostly related to convenience and being able to track changes in the shack against operating from before there were changes in the shack.But I think portable operation has some merit on the HF bands as well. One can vary their location. One can try different antennas from a single location. One can vary power from a location.And then try it all over again in a different place.That's portability.Throw in salt water beaches and there is a powerful incentive for portability in that verticals on salt water perform. Finding a location and varying operating conditions at a salt water location adds some interesting learning to what is being done.Now back from vacation, I'm moving to finding some locations and seeing what we can do to test things out. Should be fun.Scot, K9JY