Rob, I will comment on a portion of your questions.

Your selected battery is 12ah, which should be a adequate for modest amount of transmitting.  Probably good compromise between watts and weight.
The solar cell -600 is rated at .6a.  Really isn't 10watts, since it will be connected to a 12V battery.  Solar cells are constant current devices, so this panel would deliver .6a even into direct short.  So your power (full sun) would be about 12V x .6a = 7.2 watts.  Double for the -1200 panel.  Assuming that you might get 6 hours or so of sun under some conditions, the -1200 would have a better chance of keeping battery up (6hrs x 1.2a) = 7.2ahrs.  Recharging battery is not 100% efficient, maybe 3/4 or so.  So the 7.2ahrs would replace perhaps 5.5 or so ahr in battery.   

Open circuit voltage of a solar panel can be as high as 20 or 21 volts.  That is probably why you were given advice not to connect panel directly to radio.  If you did so, and battery became disconnected, your radio would see that 20 or 21 volts.  By connecting panel to battery, and then battery to radio, that risk is gone.  Obviously for same reason you would NEVER want to operate the radio with just the solar panel.

You may not need the charge controller.  Even the -1200 panel will crank out only 1.2a, which is 1/10 of battery capacity.  So relatively little danger of grossly overcharging battery.  With -600, even less likely.  Without controller you would not want to let battery be on charge for extended periods without using the battery some.

There are push-on spade terminals that will take two connections.  Also some favors of the 12120 battery have twin spades on each terminal.

Have fun.   John.

I found an old advertisement re my downconverter.  Consists of a preamp (deluxe model!) and downconverter for (reportedly) 1.9 to 2.5Ghz.  Tunable by a pot.  Probably output on channel 3, but ad didn't specify.

In my basement I came across a 2.5Ghz downconverter setup I built from a kit.  This was about 1982 or so.  System included home-made rod antenna (with a bunch of washers as directors), and downcoverter.  Later made a 4ft dish (in attic) and coffee can horn.  At the time I pointed at a tower about 15 miles away that had a (if I recall correctly) "multiple distribution" system.  This carried HBO.  Long before the small satellites.  Service was sold to hotels, etc.  So I got free HBO reception.

Anyway, these days 2.5 Ghz has ham, routers, wifi, etc.  So now I am wondering if this setup can be used for anything (for the fun of it)?   

I suppose in all the responses (including mine), one thing was mostly forgotten:  Contrats on building something!  Many today would not attempt to build much of anything, much less something of your scope.  Hope you decide to continue on with your endeavors.   

Each to his own.   My sources for vintage parts, in probable order of availability and cost:

1.  Older hams in my radio club.  Most have lots and lots of misc parts and probably some old home brew equipment.  Most have wives that would love for an excuse to help empty a bit of the basement.  Our club holds an annual auction in Oct, much is cleanings from basement.

2.  Local hamfests.  Much is not worth listing on eBay or paying for shipping.  Most home brew looks dirty, totally inop, etc.  Most can be purchased for almost nothing.  Lots of vintage parts that cannot be easily individually purchased.

3.  Dayton Hamvention.  Late on Saturday, lots of marginal vintage home brew can be had for very little.  On Friday, look for stuff that has the specific part(s) needed (ie power transformers, plug in coils, etc), and pay a little more.

4.  eBay.  Inop, not tested, ugly home brew will go for not much more than the shipping.

To my view, if one attempts to replicate a vintage design, then vintage parts should be used.  ANd there's fun in the chase.

55Mhz direct conversion, 7 receivers, 1/2W xmt output thru 10M, 3/8 watt on 6M, great specs.
Digital Up and Digital Down.  Single board.
Orders for the ONLY production run must be placed by July 25.
$895/$940.  Future is here!

55Mhz direct conversion, 7 receivers, 1/2W output thru 10M, 3/8 watt on 6M, great specs.
Digital Up and Digital Down.  Single board.
Orders for the ONLY production run must be placed by July 25.

http://openhpsdr.org/wiki/index.php?title=HERMES

All politics aside, I'm upset that the proposal is for CW only.  I only work phone.  I suppose anyone who puts on a DXpedition can set any criteria they want.  But to justify only CW because some 12K previously worked P5 ("majority" on SSB), looks like a big stretch.  Perhaps it should only be a PSK operation, since I doubt anyone has that in the P5 log.

I've had my receiver(s) for a bunch of years, and would have to say it was pretty bad.  The Op was clearly stating "Up 5 to 10" and "Up 5 to 15", yet many, many didn't have a clue and apparently couldn't hear either.  The extra "discussion" on 14270 didn't help either.  Oh, well, nothing changes.

I was looking at the Chebyshev filter calculations.  If I use a low pass filter (rather than bandpass, which really isn't needed), 7 order, with corner freq of 14.1Mhz and 2db ripple:  The peak just before the fall off is at 14.070.  At 14.190 response is down about 20db.  Maybe about 15db at bottom of phone band.  And much more higher up.  Any comments?

PSK was running about 30 watts.  Antennas were perhaps 250 ft or so apart.  Don't know what kind of radio was being used for PSK.  Phone was an Icom ProII.  The CW station, when on low end of 20, didn't bother the phone too much.  Mostly some clicks.  So would guess that the PSK radio had fairly noisy phase noise.  Noise floor as displayed on ProII jumped some 10 or 15 db, very uniform across phone band. 

Our club just finished a really nice Field Day.  20 Meters was the money band, with the CW, Phone, and PSK all wanting to simultaniously operated there.  CW and Phone didn't bother each other too much.  But PSK raised the phone radio noise floor perhaps 10 to 15 db (operating about 14.07Mhz with phone somewhere about 14.25 or so).  Looked and sounded like phase noise from the PSK radio.

That got me to thinking:  How about a somewhat selective filter on the output of the PSK radio, centered on 14.070?  The PSK window is only about 3Khz, and if such a filter would knock down the phase noise by 10 or more db up in the 20M phone portion, problem solved (at least for the phone station).  Not sure if a Pi or T bandpass LC filter would work, probably not selective enough?

Perhaps someone has already done something like this?

It's hard to answer  a number of fundamental questions vis a blog.  If there is a club near you, I highly encourage you to seek out members.  Go to ARRL.org and you can find clubs. http://www.arrl.org/find-a-club

Nothing beats a real person that you can talk to.  Most hams will be very willing to help a newbee.

Worked him tonight on 20M SSB from Colorado, 14270.0, up 7.  Going by the numbers, good ears.  Fairly good signal but K1MAN jerk transmitting on about 14271.5 didn't help.

Some meters will stick due to static on plastic front.  Clean with water?