Attempting rockmite activation of ES-001 tomorrow, as a relative cw novice I may be biting off more than I can chew but we’ll see. If the band is busy around 7.029 it may not happen. If so I should be ok on 20m with the sw+20 which is having its first outing, this one may drift a little if it’s very cold. I’ll adjust the vfo to try and stay on qrg.
Hope I’ll be able to work some of you. I’ve not been out for a while, so with good weather forecast I’m quite looking forward to Ben Macdui via Lurchers Crag.
In reply to MM0FMF:
Thanks Andy, there’s another sms on its way. I forgot how to use it and wanted to insert the mode and see the comment, I forgot the mode first time round. I’m happy now though.
Even better - An SW20+ doesn’t actually put out 2.5W - it puts out around 1.5 Watt on 13.5V and nearer to 1 Watt from a typical SLAB supply. That’s with the wick turned up!
I strongly suspect Ian’s rig is running a whole lot less than 2.5W!
Hi Ian, Hope the WX was good and the rigs got you plenty of contacts.
Last time I activated that one was 03 & 04 August 1993 with an 8W home brew on 80m CW. Your post here was read with considerable envy as I would dearly love to go back & do it again for SOTA!
Me and Jimmy did it with Barry GM4TOE, and combined it with ES-005 for a 20 point outing. A great day’s walking. The curry in Aviemore afterwards was very welcome, but the drive back to Lossiemouth was not
In reply to MM0GYX:
Good luck,
Was up there last May (from Derry Lodge) with radio gear but the weather was so bad I didn’t take it out of the rucksack. Five of us huddled in the ruin near the top, horizontal sleet and hail, visibility frequently down to about 10m or less. Wonderful !
Hope to get up again in a couple of months (from Aviemore side) and maybe get on the air - 2m only as companions definitely NOT interested in radio so no chance of HF.
In reply to M0CGH:
Hi Colin,
I can get my SW+20 up to 2.5W at full drive and 14 volts, but as you say with the 3 cell lipo and the drive turned down a little I get just shy of 1.5 watts.
Very nice day to go up ES-001, a little hazy but high pressure and no rain. Ideal for a bit of experimenting with the SWL rigs, if I didn’t already know these rigs are great value I do now!
In reply to G4YSS:
John,
I’m a very lucky man, I work for the Queen and she (indirectly) had me posted up here. With the xyl at college, the kids at school and me on leave today I was at the ski lodge by 0900, summit at 1145 and back down to the car by 1530. The knees are feeling it as I came down via the 1141m cairn in order to flank the northern corries, no climbers out today though.
I had considered that myself, but didn’t think I’d have the daylight at this time of year. It’s a very efficient way to activate “middle hill”. I walked back that way-ish and got fine views of it, loch avon and shelter stone crag, lovely.
I had to drive back to Elgin, I work at Lossie.
73,
Ian
I trimmed my SW20+ to run at exactly 1 watt from a 12.6V supply - about the voltage from a charged SLAB. I soldered the PCB at the end of last year, but I didn’t get around to putting the board into a case and wiring it up until early this year. I set up a temporary dipole antenna in the garden last Sunday so that I could try the SW20+ and do the RX alignment.
I really enjoyed using the SW20+, I worked 4 stations from the garden (LZ,I,9A & HA). I normally use a RockMite, so the SW20+'s performance blew me away! It’s amazing to hear just one station at a time! The sidetone is very nice too, being a real sidetone and not one generated as a square wave from a PIC. I find that the RockMite sidetone annoys me after a while. I tried smoothing filter on the sidetone, but I found that it cut out the lower frequency ‘program’ tones.
I have decided that outside of my ‘PP3 challenge’ activity, I will use the SW20+ as my SOTA rig of choice. I found it quite difficult to send nicely with my straight key, after using a Palm Mini Paddle for the last couple of Month’s. I have a PicoKeyer chip from N0XAS, so I think I will make up a little circuit board and wire it into the rig so I can use my paddle key. I am quite tempted by the ‘FreqMite’ too.
I love Dave K1SWL’s kits - he is a very clever man, I just wish he had more kits to choose from! I find it amazing that the RockMite started life as a party favour, it was intended as a novelty to build at Lobstercon so they could have QSO’s across the convention site!
I am very envious of your activation today - and I hope the SWL rigs continue to provide great value!
73
Colin
M0CGH
(owner of 3 RockMites, 4 home brew RockMites and an SW20+!)
My SW+20 needed some tinkering to get the sidetone where I like it, 700hz. It does drift slightly too during transmit, possibly heat build up, but settles down eventually. Your right though, it’s a very useable rig and I’ve made a lot of contacts from home with mine, often getting 599 reports.
I embodied the RIT mod in mine using the schematics on Dave’s site, it’s an easy mod and very effective. I use it quite often. I have the freq-mite too, again, very good kit. I can recommend that to you, it will change your vfo range slightly though due to loading. Mine dropped by about 10kHz. I now have 14.016-14.061 MHz (ish).
I have a KX1 kit coming, but would like to do another SW+, maybe 30?
