78th Mt. San Cristóbal EA2/NV-119 by EA2IF/P on 13/06/2020

This was a quick activation, so a quick report it will be.
>Esta fue una rápida activación y así será el reportaje.

WX keeps being unstable in my area but after having seen that Ignacio EA2BD and Jorge EA2LU went out for a SOTA activation this morning and it seemed they were having a dry morning, I decided to go up to our local summit, just to try my MTR 2B recently repaired and now able to work on both bands (it only worked on 20m before due to a few problems that have now been repaired).
>El tiempo se mantiene inestable en mi zona, pero despues de haber visto que Ignacio EA2BD y Jorge EA2LU salieron para una activación SOTA esta mañana y parecía que estaban teniendo una mañana seca, decidí subir a nuestra cima local, solo para probar mi MTR 2B recientemente reparado y ahora capaz de trabajar en ambas bandas (solo trabajaba en 20m debido a unos pocos problemas que ahora han sido reparados).

I tried but I couldn’t manage to be on air with my MTR. Since it has no AF control, and volume is suppossed to be set automatically, I couldn’t hear any background band noise on 7.032, so I was unable to tune my antenna tuner by ear.
Also, the MTR doesn’t have a SWR meter, so I connected an external one and the output power on 40m was just enough to move the forward power indicator needle less than 1/4 of the full scale, so you can figure out how impossible it was for me to tune the antenna tuner for minimum SWR on the reflected power indicator of my external SWR meter.
Antenna was a 21.5m long endfed wire as an inverted vee. With much disappointment, I had to give up and finally switched to my trusty SOTA-kit with the FT-817ND and the MFJ-941B antenna tuner inside the wooden box, with which I was able to log in just 11 minutes, 11 QSOs, 2 of which were S2S on 40m CW.
>Intenté pero no pude salir al aire con mi MTR. Como no tiene control de volumen, pues se supone que se ajusta automáticamente, no podía oir ningún ruido de fondo en la banda de 7.032, así que fui incapaz de ajustar mi acoplador de antenas a oido.
El MTR tampoco tiene medidor de R.O.E., así que conecté uno externo y la potencia de salida en 40m era solo suficiente para mover la aguja del medidor de potencia directa menos de 1/4 de la escala, así que pueden entender cuán imposible me fue ajustar el acoplador de antena para mínima R.O.E. en mi medidor externo.
La antena fue un cable de 21,5m de largo alimentado en el extremo y como una V invertida. Con gran decepción, tuve que dejarlo y finalmente cambié a mi fiable SOTA-kit con el FT-817ND y el acoplador MFJ-941B dentro de la caja de madera, con el que pude anotar, en 40m CW, 11 QSOs en solo 11 minutos, 2 de los cuales fueron SaS.

This is the log:
>Este es el log:


You can see it on the map:
>Pueden verlo en el mapa:

The rain arrived and I had to QRT, pack up and descend.
Sorry for such a brief activation.
>La lluvia llegó y tuve que hacer QRT, empacar y descender.
Siento una activación así de breve.

Thanks dear chasers for your calls and QSOs.
I’ll be looking forward to copying you all again soon from a summit.
>Gracias estimados cazadors por sus llamadas y QSOs.
Estaré esperando volver a copiarles a todos pronto desde una cima.

73,

Guru

Hi Guru,
Congrats on your cummulative 78th San Cristobal mountain!

concerning low volume with the MTR, that is right, it happened to me when I started using the MTR; it is very sensitive to headphones impedance, and many of the “standard” headphones don’t cope with this rig…
Once you find a proper one you get plenty of volume. In order to control the sound you can insert a small in-line volume controller (just a rotary potentiometer) that is easy to find on internet.

Concerning SWR reading, I agree that it is quite important to monitor it in this rig; that’s why I built a small one that works properly. A tiny swr meter is also available on hamshop.cz

Looking forward for a S2S soon! 73 de Ignacio.

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Hi Guru,
Sorry you could not get your MTR working!
I Heard you trying to get Mike KE5AKL a few minutes
ago You were 569 into NJ. I waited to see if He heard you but no luck!!
I guess your are using a remote because there is a delay of a few seconds when your call comes through
you come in after the other guys call! Hi Hi!
Any way my friend just wanted to say Hello and good Luck with your MTR. By the way did you hear me get Mike!!
73 Gary, N2ESE

Hi Gary,
Thanks for the report from NJ.
The real problem today was QSB. I copied Mike weak but quite well in the very begining but he quickly faded away in a matter of few minutes until I completely lost him.
No, I think I didn’t hear you chasing Mike KE5AKL today. I hear you many other times chasing but not today.
Yes, I’m using my remote station. My concern is not about getting my call a bit later, as that’s something I often do in purpose simply because I’m not QRO and I don’t want to call at the same time they big boys do. I usually prefer to send my call a bit later in the hope of being heard at the end of the initial mess. What it’s usually called tail-ending.
My real concern with my remote station is when my morse code gets out broken due to internet signal problems (latency or jitters) thus resulting in incomprehensible morse code.
Despite having my son playing with his Play Station at that same time today, It looks like that wasn’t the issue today because you managed to copy my callsign and that means that it went out correctly.
Take care, Gary!
I’ll let you know if I finally manage to get something useful out of my MTR.
73,

Guru

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