New MTR field trials

MTR ver2 (L), MTR ver1 (R), 1000mAh (3S) Lipo, AME Portapaddle II

I took my new MTR, together with my original, to my local summit - G/CE-001, to give it a short workout to check it's performance.  It turned out a lovely sunny day, and although there was a cold northerly wind blowing, I setup in the shelter of some bushes and was positively warm whilst sitting in the sun.

After placing a spot on SOTAwatch the contacts came steadily.I started off on 30 metres and had a run of 8 sations in 6 minutes before the frequency went quiet. I took the opportunity to check my spot, and noticed that Barry, MW0IML/P was on 60 metres cw, so I quickly swapped over MTR's and called him for a quick S2S. Barry was about to QSY to 40m so I took his frequency and called  CQ. I was answered by G3IXZ who also informed me that Dave, G4ASA/P was up 1Khz calling CQ. A quick QSY and I'd bagged my second S2S of the day within 5 minutes of each other.As I had the 60/20 MTR setup, I switched to 20m where I worked 9 stations, including a transatlantic with Bill, W4ZV. An alert from my phone showed that DJ5AA/p was on 40m, so it was a quick swap over to MTR ver2 to make a third S2S followed a few minutes later with S2S number 4 with DL4FDM. Calling CQ on 40m netted another 12 stations on 40 before OK3EQ/p came along for S2S number 5.Another alert indicated OK1DVM/p on 20m, so another MTR shuffle and S2S number 6 was in the bag.With a respectable 36 QSOs between the MTRs, the nice weather and the fact that I had my antenna analyser with me, I took some time to rebuild my 15 and 17 m antennas which had not been behaving that well. To put them to the test I pulled out my ATS4 (yes, that came along too) and put out a CQ on 17m. I was rewarded with 10 contacts which included a couple of Asiatic Russians and one Stateside QSO. A CQ on 15m netted only a single call from OK1MLP to round off the day with 49 QSOs, 19 DXCC and 6 S2S.

Everything worked to plan and although band conditions were not good, the little MTRs performed flawlessly. All that and sunshine, what more could you ask for?

S2S contacts

Out of the wind in the lee of the bushes

The shack