Some may know that I once built a RockMite using a portable soldering iron on the summit of Whernside. Just for fun, I thought I’d attempt another summit build, this time I decided to try a more complex transceiver kit.
I bought a QCX-mini 20 kit last year in the hope that I would build it on a summit during the summer. The summer slipped away and I never got around to building my kit.
Today presented an opportunity to attempt my QCX mini 20 summit build. I wanted the chance to earn points for my efforts, so that meant travelling a little bit further afield to get to a summit I haven’t done this year. I also wanted an easy summit as I’d be taking quite a lot of stuff. I chose Great Whernside G/NP-008.
The drive took about 1hr 15 minutes from home and the walk was pleasant, the weather mild but not hot.
I used my little blue tent as a base, it served as a place to store my stuff and as a shelter. I was ready to start building by 0910utc. The first job was the RX band pass filter / phase splitter toroid winding (infamous ‘T1’). I suppose I could have wound the toroids in advance, but I thought that it would feel like cheating. I admit that T1 took longer than I thought it would, it’s not so easy when you’re lying on the ground! I had to do a re-wind because a winding got crossed and I hadn’t noticed.
The rest of the build went fine, although I did keep having to push myself to keep going, the urge to take a break was strong!
The physical building was complete by 1230utc. And I was relieved to be greeted by the splash screen and band selection screen upon the application of power!
Next job was TX alignment, the low pass filter needs tweaking to get good power output. I used a sharpened wooden lolly stick the adjust the turns on the toroids whilst checking the power output on my QRP power meter. I was able to get about 5 watts output whilst powering the rig with a 3S lipo.
I then went through the RX alignment process using the onboard alignment tools.
I didn’t get a photo but I’d taken along my QRPlabs QLG1 GPS module and I left it blinking away whilst I ate some lunch and put up my dipole antenna. (It was nice to move about a bit, I was beginning to feel the effects of being on the ground for so long.)
I used the GPS calibration routine to calibrate the QCX oscillators after a warm up period - such a simple idea but saves a whole lot of fuss!
Thankfully the QCX receiver seemed to be hearing signals from the antenna, so after packing away my stuff, including the tent, I was ready to try a CQ call at about 1340utc. First to find me was Daniel, HB9IIO/P, on HB/VD-039. Nice to open with an S2S!
I wasn’t overly impressed with the conditions on 20m, but I managed 8 QSOs in total before I gave up.
Despite the low tally of QSOs, it was still a successful mission. 
73, Colin
