so i finally finished the MTR-3B kit i've had sitting in a box for like eight months and took it out to the park last weekend for some SOTA-adjacent wandering (didnt actually activate anything, just wanted to test the rig in the field). figured i'd share some thoughts since i was in this exact situation not long ago trying to find info from people who actually used this stuff.

first off the kit itself — i'm not a great builder, i've done a couple of small kits before but nothing with this many surface mount components. took me probably 12 hours spread across a few evenings and i had to reflow two joints that were giving me trouble on the sidetone circuit. if you're thinking about this one and you're nervous about SMD stuff, just go slow and use flux. seriously the flux made a huge difference for me.

anyway once it was done i threw it in my bag with a 3ah lipo, my kx2 paddle, and a random wire antenna with a 9:1 unun and drove to the park. the thing is just absurdly small. like i keep picking it up and being surprised there's a radio in my hand. ran about 2.5 watts into 40m and made 7 contacts in maybe an hour and a half, two of which were into the midwest from the mid-atlantic which felt pretty good for that power level. battery barely moved the whole time.

the only real issue i had was that my random wire setup was kinda sketchy — i think i need a longer counterpoise or something because i was getting some weird RF on the key at first. fixed it by repositioning things but i feel like my antenna situation needs work before i do this again. anyone have a good portable antenna setup they like for 40/20 that isn't a huge pain to set up alone?

congrats on the build man, MTR-3B is a great little rig. the RF on the key thing is almost always a counterpoise issue with random wire setups — i run a 17 foot counterpoise laid on the ground and that usually clears it right up. some people use a longer one but i've found that length works well for 40 and is manageable in a park without tripping over it constantly.

for antennas i really like the end-fed half wave for portable work. you can get a decent EFHW transformer kit for not much money or wind your own if you're already building stuff. i use a 40m EFHW (66ish feet) with a 6 foot coax jumper to my rig and it tunes up on 20 and 15 pretty well with a little matchbox. setup is just throwing the wire over a tree branch which sounds easy until the branch you want is always just out of reach but anyway

sounds like you're hooked now. welcome to the rabbit hole where tiny radios somehow feel more satisfying than big ones

i just got my license a few months ago and QRP stuff is what drew me to ham radio in the first place — the idea that you can talk across the country with less power than an LED bulb is just wild to me. im still saving up for either a KX2 or maybe trying one of the uSDX kits which are cheaper but i hear mixed things about them. did you consider any other rigs before going with the MTR? and how hard was CW to learn, thats the part im most nervous about