The sun was shining on a Sunday afternoon. A quick packing of radio kit, thermos, sandwiches and drive from Hereford to Bryn Awr, just north of Abergavenny led to an enjoyable walk and SOTA activation.
How peaceful and pleasant it it to be out on the hills again. This year, the Skirrid, Sugar Loaf and Mynydd Troed in the bag and approaching, slowly but surely my first 100 activations.
A basic station, often for me the most satisfying with the constant marvel and delight in connecting across the miles with low power. This hobby
I bought an MTR about 10 years ago, new from the USA, but found it rather fiddly in use compared with other rigs I’ve used for SOTA like the FT-817, FT-857, KX2 and KX3, I sold the MTR on within a few months of having it. They have a big following though and people are very successful in using them as Ian @G4WTF plainly is, due credit to those who can master them, but when operating with one compared to the “black box” type radios I did find that things didn’t flow as well in the mountain environment. Conversely the HB1B I have used several times on summits seemed better suited to my style and I kept it as a back rig for overseas SOTA Tours.
When are you going to use your two MTRs Colin @G8TMV - with two bespoke CW radios to utilise for the purpose I wondered why not? Maybe you use them in the shack.
Unfortunately I had to have a break from both SOTA and Ham radio for health reasons. I’ve been back a couple of years now but I found that I had to re-learn CW almost from scratch. Hopefully once the rain stops I’ll be out doing activations again and my CW is just about recovered.
Good stuff, give it a go, bite the bullet and go for it with the MTRs! Had a quiet winter myself, partly for health reasons, so concentrated on upgrading my home station and chasing on 10 meters mostly. I had to rest up the whole of January after a few days in a Bradford hospital and found it difficult after that to get motivated again. I can’t abide sitting for an hour or more in the cold no matter what I wear. Now its warming up I’ve got a few SOTA plans, like the Welsh Hog Roast in June, a holiday in SV9 and a trip to the Ham Radio with GI4ONL. I also want to make my usual annual visit to the G/TWs that Allan GW4VPX finished activating last week.
I love my MTRs, I don’t find them hard to use at all, in fact I find the opposite. There’s no IF shift to play with, no filter settings, no volume control etc etc!
Agree that it’s nice to see a rig being used, I do use my MTRs. I don’t tend to use my QCXs, unless I want to run QRO with the amplifier. I’m down to just 5 MTRs now, having sold a couple.
Good to see you are out and about again Ian - and on one of our greatest favoourites. We took a friend there on Boxing Day last year and it was magical with super views as ever. Looking forward to that elusive s2s with you but will have to wait until we return from Scotland as it’ll be on VHF/UHF!
73 Viki
Don’t get wrong Colin (and the other Colin), it’s just that I cut my teeth on transceivers like the Yaesu FT-101E, FT-107M, Kenwood TS-930s & 940s, Ten Tec Paragon (distastrous!), FT-1000MP, FT-2000D etc etc and that was before SOTA was invented - whereas you probably cut teeth on home brew rigs like the MTRs and a lot of other G-QRP Club and others designs (and probably some of your own designs too) that you home brewed yourself!
You are an undoubted expert in that field for sure, in building them and in operating them effectively from summits.
