LA1KHA's PP3/MN1604 Challenge

Battery: #2 Panasonic Evolta
Activation #5
Date: 07/02/15
Summit: G/NP-028 Rombalds Moor
Bands: 30m
Finish Voltage: 8.86v (after almost 13 months rest voltage gone up!)
Rig: Home Brew challenge rig based on RockMite
Ant: Inv. Vee dipole at 6m above ground
QSOs: 15
DXCC - 8 - EA,DL,F,G,OE,OK,OM,OZ
Cumulative QSOs:38
Cumulative DXCC: 13
EA,F,DL,G,GI,GM,GW,OE,OK,OM,OZ,PA,SP

Battery: #2 Panasonic Evolta
Activation #6
Date: 15/03/15
Summit: G/NP-010 Pen Y Ghent
Bands: 20m
Finish Voltage: N/A
Rig: Modified K1SWL RockMite20
Ant: Inv. Vee dipole at 6m above ground
QSOs: 9
DXCC - 5 - 9A,EA,DL,I,OK
Cumulative QSOs: 47
Cumulative DXCC: 15
9A,EA,F,DL,G,GI,GM,GW,I,OE,OK,OM,OZ,PA,SP

Battery: #2 Panasonic Evolta
Activation #7
Date: 15/03/15
Summit: G/NP-017 Fountains Fell
Bands: 20m
Finish Voltage: 8.73v
Rig: Modified K1SWL RockMite20
Ant: Inv. Vee dipole at 6m above ground
QSOs: 11 S2S with LA1ENA/P LA/TM-244, DX QSO with N1EU
DXCC - 7 - EA,CT,DL,HB9,I,LA,K
Cumulative QSOs:58
Cumulative DXCC: 19
9A,CT,EA,F,DL,G,GI,GM,GW,HB9,I,K,LA,OE,OK,OM,OZ,PA,SP

Was amazed when Barry N1EU called me, this is the second time he’s worked me on my milliwatt adventures. Not sure what the power output of my RockMite 20 is, but my standard RM20 running from 12V puts out about 330mW. I’m guessing that my challenge RM-20 would have been putting out something in the region of 150 to 200mW. Feeder loss somewhere around 1dB.

73, Colin M1BUU

Battery: #2 Panasonic Evolta
Activation #8
Date: 25/02/16
Summit: G/NP-028 Rombalds Moor
Bands: 20m, 30m
Finish Voltage: 8.70v
Rig: Modified K1SWL RockMite20, Home brew RockMite 30
Ant: Inv. Vee dipole at 8m above ground
QSOs: 9
DXCC - 4 - DL,K,OE,SM
Cumulative QSOs:67
Cumulative DXCC: 20
9A,CT,EA,F,DL,G,GI,GM,GW,HB9,I,K,LA,OE,OK,OM,OZ,PA,SM,SP

Now running with a home programmed PIC in the home brew RM-30.
Today was just a live CW practice session really, I needed a booster session as my next SOTA outing is not until next weekend.

73, Colin M1BUU

1 Like

Battery: “Biltema” brand PP3 9v low price battery
Cumulative QSOs: 28
Cumulative DXCC:11 (DL ,F, G ,GI,HA, HB9,LA,OE,OK,PA,SP)

Logg see sota or below.
LNR Mountain Topper 3B

Stats:16/04/2016
Battery: #7
Activation: #1
Summit: LA/TM-049
Band: 30m
Finish Voltage: not measured
QSOs: 2
DXCCs: 2 DL and G
Cumulative QSOs: 2
Cumulative DXCC: 2 (DL, G)

Stats:17/04/2016
Battery: #7
Activation: #2
Summit: LA/TM-049
Band: 30m
Finish Voltage: not measured
QSOs: 9
DXCCs: 6 DL, F, G, GI, HA and, OK
Cumulative QSOs: 11
Cumulative DXCC: 5 (DL, F, G, GI, HA,OK)

Stats:18/04/2016
Battery: #7
Activation: #3
Summit: LA/TM-049
Band: 30m
Finish Voltage: not measured
QSOs: 5
DXCCs: 5 DL, HA, LA and SP
Cumulative QSOs: 16
Cumulative DXCC: 8(DL,F,G,GI,HA,LA,OK,SP)

Stats:19/04/2016
Battery: #7
Activation: #4
Summit: LA/TM-049
Band: 30m
Finish Voltage: 7,6v
QSOs: 4
DXCCs: 4 HA, HB9 ,OE and OK
Cumulative QSOs: 20
Cumulative DXCC: 10 (DL ,F, G ,GI,HA, HB9,LA,OE,OK,SP)

Stats:22/04/2016
Battery: #7
Activation: #5
Summit: LA/TM-049
Band: 30m
Finish Voltage: 6,9v
QSOs: 8
DXCCs: 4 DL, G,HB9 and PA
Cumulative QSOs: 28
Cumulative DXCC: 11 (DL ,F, G ,GI,HA, HB9,LA,OE,OK,PA,SP)

The mountain topper is a nice radio ,but with its powerfull PA it use current lika a drunken seaman use money after 9 month to sea.

enter link description here

2 Likes

Hi Kjell,

nice to see, that in your new challenge, I had the honor to be the first logged station.
On my summit DL/MF-082 I also used the same type of boozy, sottish (by intention without intermediate “c” ;-)) MTR3B radio. but on my side hopelessly over-powered with 11V.

Thanks for the S2S.

73 Stephan, DM1LE

Some snow on activation today. Temp +4c.
Happy with my MTR 3B mods, but power is to high.
Would like to have 100mW and 3W option.

Battery: “Biltema” brand PP3 9v low price battery

Cumulative QSOs: 37
Cumulative DXCC: 11 (DL,EI,F,G,GW,HA,HB9,I,LA,OE,ON,S5)

Stats:24/04/2016
Battery: #7
Activation: #6
Summit: LA/TM-049
Band: 30m
Finish Voltage: 7v@ +4C
QSOs: 9
DXCCs: 4 DL ,OK, LA and SP
Cumulative QSOs: 37
Cumulative DXCC: 11 (DL ,F, G ,GI,HA, HB9,LA,OE,OK,PA,SP)

73 de LA1KHA Kjell

2 Likes

Hej Kjell…
Tnx for QRPppppppp Qso :slight_smile: and testing me :). he he.
Soo…What ist the result TRX- cable- antenna ?? ~circa in the dbm??.
Vy 73 de Rob(ert) SP8RHP.

Battery: #2 Panasonic Evolta
Activation #9
Date: 24/04/16
Summit: G/NP-028 Rombalds Moor
Bands: 30m
Finish Voltage: 8.67v
Rig: Home brew RockMite 30
Ant: Inv. Vee dipole at 6m above ground
QSOs: 3
DXCC - 2 - EA,SM
Cumulative QSOs:70
Cumulative DXCC: 20
9A,CT,EA,F,DL,G,GI,GM,GW,HB9,I,K,LA,OE,OK,OM,OZ,PA,SM,SP

Kjell has been out playing with his new toy, an MTR-3B, so I decided to have a go with the old home brew challenge rig again. I had a short window of free time this morning, so I headed across town to Rombald’s Moor, G/NP-028. I also used the opportunity to fine tune my new 40/30/20/17/15m dipole which I built to compliment my MTR-5B. I’d taken my hefty FT817 along to provide the RF for VSWR measurement but I ran out of time to use it for QSOs!

I had been disappointed that I had had to use a pre-programmed PIC in my home brew rig, so for a mini project earlier this year, I had a go at programming my own RockMite controller chip. At first I struggled to get the 12C508A chip to program right with my cheap far east PIC programmer. I decided to try a Flash chip instead, the 12F508, and it programmed with the RockMite code on the first try! I put the 12F508 into the challenge rig and it worked sort of ok - certainly usable - but the timing was slightly different. Anyway, in the end I figured out how to program my 12C508A chips and today I plugged in the home blown chip into the home made rig - very satisfying!

The PIC chips run from an internal oscillator, maybe the 12C and 12F types are very slightly different.

A number of CQ calls only resulted in three QSO’s, EB1EVX, EA1CVZ and SM4BNZ - many thanks to those stations! I think the band conditions must have been poor, but I still find it amazing having QSO’s with such a simple rig and low energy power source!

A shame that I didn’t manage to ‘qualify’ the summit but after a number of CQ’s I felt I didn’t want to waste any more battery capacity.

73, Colin

My compliments to M1BUU Colin for his activations. Nice.
Congrats on your homemade el-keyer.

Drove to the summit on my way home from work.
Still snowing, but only a little stayed as snow on the ground due to temp is +2C .
Had little time as XYL Ingrid was going out and I promised to come home early…
LA3NGA Henning was first qso.
With the high output from the MTR 3B and a dipole for 10Mc in direction SW at 6m qso is easyer.
But battery will run out long before 100 QSO I think.
Tanks for all fun today.
73 de LA1KHA Kjell

Battery: “Biltema” brand PP3 9v low price battery

Stats:25/04/2016
Battery: #7
Activation: #7
Summit: LA/TM-049
Band: 30m
Finish Voltage: ?@2C
QSOs: 8
DXCCs: 7 G, OK, ON, OM, LA, PA and SP
Cumulative QSOs: 45
Cumulative DXCC: 13 (DL ,F, G ,GI,HA, HB9,LA,OE,OK,ON,OM,PA,SP)

Battery: “Biltema” brand PP3 9v low price battery

Stats:26/04/2016
Battery: #7
Activation: #8
Summit: LA/TM-049
Band: 30m
Finish Voltage: ?@2C
QSOs: 2
DXCCs: 2 HA and LA
Cumulative QSOs: 47
Cumulative DXCC: 13 (DL ,F, G ,GI,HA, HB9,LA,OE,OK,ON,OM,PA,SP)

Stats:27/04/2016
Battery: #7
Activation: #9
Summit: LA/TM-049
Band: 30m
Finish Voltage: 7.04@10C
QSOs: 5
DXCCs: 4 DL, OE, LA and SP
Cumulative QSOs: 51
Cumulative DXCC: 13 (DL ,F, G ,GI,HA, HB9,LA,OE,OK,ON,OM,PA,SP)

Activation on May 1st.
Only qso with LA1ENA Aage , he noticed that my signals faded from 599 with KX1 radio on 6 X AA cells to MTR 3B on a low cost battery PP3 9v

Stats:01/05/2016
Battery: #7
Activation: #10
Summit: LA/TM-049
Band: 30m
Finish Voltage: ?
QSOs: 1
DXCCs: 1 LA
Cumulative QSOs: 52
Cumulative DXCC: 13 (DL ,F, G ,GI,HA, HB9,LA,OE,OK,ON,OM,PA,SP)

Last activation on my low price " Biltema" brand PP3 9volt battery.
Nice to QSO HB9BIN/P on HB/BL-009 S2S
After two qso and a lot of CQ I noticed a change in radio.
Battery was now 5.1v and radio did not function correct any more.
After 11 activations and 55 qso the battery was empty.
This is about 1/10 of the number of qso possible with a Rockmite with 100mW.
But still a lot of fun, so thanks to you all.

Stats:02/05/2016
Battery: #7 Biltema low price brand.
Activation: #11
Summit: LA/TM-049
Band: 30m
Finish Voltage: 5.10V@7C no signals more.
QSOs: 3
DXCCs: 3 DL, HB9 and SP
Cumulative QSOs: 55
Cumulative DXCC: 13 (DL ,F, G ,GI,HA, HB9,LA,OE,OK,ON,OM,PA,SP)

3 Likes

Battery: #2 Panasonic Evolta
Activation #10
Date: 17/12/16
Summit: G/NP-005 Ingleborough
Bands: 30m
Finish Voltage: 8.65v
Rig: Home brew RockMite 30
Ant: Inv. Vee dipole at 6m above ground
QSOs: 5
DXCC - 2 - DL,SM
Cumulative QSOs:75
Cumulative DXCC: 20
9A,CT,EA,F,DL,G,GI,GM,GW,HB9,I,K,LA,OE,OK,OM,OZ,PA,SM,SP

Edit -
Just looking back through the thread, I note that my battery was first used on 1st December 2012, four years ago! I looked for the ‘best before date’ on the battery and it’s stamped with 01 2017. I suppose I ought to activate more often!

Reviving this thread prompted me to read it again. It was like a mystery novel, you didn’t know what would happen next.

Mobile phone technology apparently uses 3v devices and I wonder if that is a good direction to go for lower power usage. it might even be worth using an inverter from a 9v battery to produce 3v, but a CR2032-powered “Sandmite” radio could set a new goal for this type of challenge.

73 Andrew VK1DA VK2UH

I read through the entire thread last night, it was interesting to rediscover my journey from struggling to cope with 10 wpm using a straight key, to where I am now. If it wasn’t for Kjell’s challenge, I would probably be still activating on 2m FM.

There’s no doubt that I owe a lot of my successes to the challenge, it pushed me to build more home brew rigs and also to modify designs. My drive of the last few years to get to a usable level of competency in CW was also very much rooted in the challenge.

I don’t think I’ll ever top the scores in the challenge achieved by Kjell or Richard, I simply don’t have enough time to operate. I do find it amazing at how long a PP3 will last though and it certainly seems as though it’s more likely that you will lose interest before the battery runs out!

I think the main issue is current demand, not voltage. My feeling is that these small cells don’t like to supply a large chunk of current all at once. Despite the great efficiency of the KD1JV MTR rigs, the current demand in TX, say 400 - 500 mA really knocks a PP3 for 6, you get a big voltake sag which really pulls the output power down. It’s not that I’m picking a fault with the MTR rigs, it’s that a PP3 is a poor power source. Minimising TX current is the way to go for the challenge I think.

Rather than trying to use batteries, maybe we should be looking to use solar, kinetic or heat energy to power our rigs. Candle powered radio anyone?

2 Likes

Back on LA/TM-049 for some more activation with PP3 9v battery and Rockmite for 10.120Mc and a dipole.
Got some X-tal for 10.106 and 10.116 and think soon is time for making a switch for more xtals.
Some RTTY stations are active on or near 10.120 so it is dificult to qso.
I belive that in R1 we are to only use CW on 10.100 to 10.130( with some ZA on phone privileges)

Battery: "Philips Extreme life PP3
Cumulative QSOs: 7
Cumulative DXCC: 7 (DL, F, G, HB9, LA, OE and PA)
Logg see sota or below.

Stats:22/01/2017
Battery: #8
Activation: #1
Summit: LA/TM-049
Band: 30m
Finish Voltage: not measured
QSOs: 4
DXCCs: 2 F, G, HB9 and PA
Cumulative QSOs: 2
Cumulative DXCC: 4 (F, G, HB9 and PA)

Stats:23/01/2017
Battery: #8
Activation: #2
Summit: LA/TM-049
Band: 30m
Finish Voltage: not measured
QSOs: 1
DXCCs: 1 DL
Cumulative QSOs: 5
Cumulative DXCC: 5 (DL, F, G, HB9 and PA)

Stats:24/01/2017
Battery: #8
Activation: #1
Summit: LA/TM-049
Band: 30m
Finish Voltage: not measured
QSOs: 2
DXCCs: 2 OE AND LA
Cumulative QSOs: 7
Cumulative DXCC: 7 (DL, F, G, HB9, LA, OE and PA)

I listened for you on the 23rd, but I heard nothing here. I have been working Åge LA1ENA in the afternoons from my garden with reasonable sigs on 30m. I find it fascinating that I was unable to detect a trace of signal from Åge on 14MHz, but yet there were good signals on 10MHz. Those guys who think the next band down from 20m is 40m are really missing out! :wink:

I do hope to get some more PP3 QSOs in the log during the coming months.

73, Colin

Battery: #2 Panasonic Evolta
Activation #11
Date: 17/2/17
Summit: G/NP-028 Rombald’s Moor
Bands: 30m
Finish Voltage: 8.57v
Rig: Home brew RockMite 30
Ant: Inv. Vee dipole at 6m above ground
QSOs: 11
DXCC - 8 - DL,F,HB9,I,LA,OK,SM,SP
Cumulative QSOs:86
Cumulative DXCC: 20
9A,CT,EA,F,DL,G,GI,GM,GW,HB9,I,K,LA,OE,OK,OM,OZ,PA,SM,SP

30m seemed to be in very good shape today. I had a nice run of callers in 20 minutes. At one point a few stations were calling at once and I struggled to pick out a call, then I heard ‘up’ ‘up’. I took the ‘up’ to mean work split. I would work split but I haven’t found the right button or menu setting yet. :wink:

My Panasonic Evolta battery has a best before date of 01/2017, it’s living in borrowed time!! :smile:

73, Colin

Edit -
Just looked back through the thread, I first started using my Panasonic Evolta battery back in December 2012. I can’t believe I’ve had the battery so long!

1 Like

Battery: #2 Panasonic Evolta
Activation #12
Date: 10/3/17
Summit: G/NP-028 Rombald’s Moor
Bands: 30m
Finish Voltage not measured
Rig: Home brew RockMite 30
Ant: Inv. Vee dipole at 6m above ground
QSOs: 2
DXCC - 2 - DL,HB9
Cumulative QSOs:88
Cumulative DXCC: 20
9A,CT,EA,F,DL,G,GI,GM,GW,HB9,I,K,LA,OE,OK,OM,OZ,PA,SM,SP

30m band in poor shape. Hope to be out again on Friday.

1 Like

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