After salivating over these for almost a year, I bit the bullet.  Go check these out at www.buddipole.com/portablepower.html  I bought the rapid charger and Anderson Power Poles at Pacificon but Chris and Budd were already out of the 4S4P packs, so I ordered them in early November, with plans to work portable at Piedras Blancas over the Christmas holiday.  Family circumstances canceled those plans, so I'm hoping to get the PowerPole connectors on the other bits and give the batteries a go from the nearby mountains this last week of vacation.  Otherwise, it may be spring break before I get time to get out of the house again, and that might be a little iffy then as well. Anyway, the batteries are nanophosphate, and they are TINY, about the size of  12 C batteries arranged in a brick, and the "big" pack is something like two pounds.  Considering I'm used to hauling a 55 Ah Optima Blue Top around, this is fine business indeed.

At Pacificon, I had the chance to talk to Alan Biocca, WB6ZQZ, about the batteries, as well as a couple other BP guys, and they raved about them.  Apparently this style of battery has been used by RC airplane guys; they have a big battery in their trucks that they use to charge the little packs, so that's my plan as well: use an Optima connected by PowerPoles to the quick charger to recharge the battery pack.  They are not cheap items, but they are long lasting; the guys I talked to have used theirs  since BP came out with the packs and have noticed no dip in performance.  The next evolution of it would be attaching a solar panel to it, but that's down the road as well.