RockMite activation of DM/BW-099

[DL3TU]

When I read @M1BUU’s post, I thought I might try that too. I can’t look back on a long tradition of activations with the RockMite on May 6th, but it’s never too late to start a habbit

The announced light drizzle was no issue. What bothered me more was the fact that there had been repeated trouble with a fairly active sun over the past few days. A major solar flare reaching X4.52 appeared around sunspot 3663 at 06:35 UTC on the same day. Friends reported on the local SOTA chat group that the bands were dead for about an hour.

I had to be in the office on Monday morning, but planned to leave after lunch for the activation of DM/BW-099, my local summit. It’s only about ten minutes by car and another 20 minutes walk up the hill.
With some confidence that it would be possible to manage a few QSOs, I set up the 30m end-fed dipole and called CQ around the alerted time. It took about 20 minutes of CQing, however, until I noticed a faint station that was calling me. It’s one of the features of a simple direct conversion receiver like the RockMite that you always hear a large part of the audio spectrum. I may not have noticed @SP9AMH immediately, which I was sorry about. We exchanged reports and 73’s, then it went on in the same fashion. Only after 10 minutes of endless CQ I heard GM4ZMK calling. Richard’s signal went from loud to not discernable and back. With two QSOs in 30 minutes my expectations were pretty low. So I called it a day and pulled the plug. Under the current conditions with increased D-layer absorption, Bz pointing far south and a fast moving solar wind, an output power of about 500mW was perhaps a little too little

Only two stations were reporting me on RBN over the 30 minutes period starting just before 12:00 utc:

Thanks anyway to everyone who tried and my apologies if I couldn’t hear you!
Better luck next year

73, Roman

[DL1CR]

Hello Roman,
I have tried several times to get in touch with you. Unfortunately, your signal could only be heard very faintly in the qsb. The conditions were - in my opinion - unusually bad.

Don’t let that discourage you from continuing to work with qrpp.

“Less power - more fun” doesn’t always apply but mostly!

73 Chris

[M1BUU]

Sorry OM, I completely forgot! Hope that you had a great day regardless of the radio conditions.

I spent the weekend in Colchester in the south east at my wife’s mother’s. I hadn’t been since last April and was due to make a visit! Yesterday was mostly spent travelling back to home in the north west.

VY 73,

Colin

[DL3TU]

Yesterday I activated Achalm (DM/BW-099) with a RockMite again. This was the third consecutive year and I should mention that Colin @M1BUU and his RockMite activations provided a fair bit of inspiration for this outing.

Achalm is my local summit and I can actually see it from my office.

As I often cycle to work, I wanted to reach the summit by bicycle. It’s only a few kilometres from there to the top and I had to return to the office for a meeting later in the afternoon anyway. The ride from home to the summit is about 20 km and involves roughly 400 m of elevation gain overall.

I arrived on the summit in good time and started the activation around 08:30 UTC. I started with a RockMite for 30 metres.
Band conditions were challenging, though. The skip distance was rather long, as has often been the case recently, with signals reaching mostly the outer parts of Europe. The MUF barely climbed above 7 MHz during the whole day. Here’s a screenshot from RBN on 30 metres for DL3TU/p:

Operating with the RockMite under these conditions required quite a bit of patience. Lots of CQ calls, long silent pauses and then suddenly somebody would come back with a surprisingly strong signal. I’m particularly grateful to everyone who tried and called me and who patiently kept trying (some stations for several minutes!) until we finally completed the QSO — many thanks for the persistence! Also thanks to my SOTA-BW friends who tried to work me while simultaneously providing feedback in the Signal group chat.

There is something particularly satisfying about making contacts with a homebrew radio running very low power. Every single QSO feels genuinely earned. A RockMite activation is certainly not the fastest or most efficient way to collect summit points, but it gives a wonderful sense of achievement when those tiny signals actually make it across hundreds of kilometres.

Eventually I managed to get five QSOs safely into the log. At that point I packed away the RockMite and switched to the Penntek TR-35 on 40 m. Unsurprisingly, things became noticeably easier with roughly ten times the output power. Contacts came more quickly and operating became more relaxed. I simply enjoyed the morning on the summit. At some point, however, reality called again. The clouds were getting bigger and darker and there were still 20 km of cycling waiting for me. So I pulled the plug, packed away everything safely and began my ride back.

A thoroughly enjoyable morning with bicycles, QRP radios, sunshine and SOTA.

Once again thanks for the QSOs and your patience - and sorry if we couldn’t complete the QSO. Hope to see you again next year!

73, Roman

[M1BUU]

Brilliant, Roman!

Looks like you had fun! I am hoping that I can do another QRPp activation next week, although it won’t be sponsored by Altoids this time.

73, Colin

[EI3LH]

@DL3TU

Penntek TR-35

Those Penntek radios look the business. I’ve never seen anything for sale new or used in Europe alas.

Great work with your setups Roman!

@M1BUU

I am hoping that I can do another QRPp activation next week

Looking forward to a report. Your QRPp adventures are excellent. I like seeing what madcap experiments you will try next on pea-sized granules of power! GL!

[DL3TU]

@M1BUU

I am hoping that I can do another QRPp activation next week, although it won’t be sponsored by Altoids this time.

… it would be great to have a RM-2-RM QSO, Colin. I’m currently working on a 20m RockMite which I saved from being scrapped. With a little luck it’ll come to life over the weekend.

@EI3LH

I’ve never seen anything for sale new or used in Europe alas.

The TR-35 is rare, Ian. I was really lucky that I knew both previous owners and was able to jump at the chance quickly

73, Roman