so ive been wanting to do this for probably two years now and last weekend i finally just did it. built a little rockmite clone (well sort of, i made some mods) and threw it in my bag with a 9v battery pack and a random wire antenna and drove out to a state park about 40 minutes from my house.

first contact was a guy in ohio, im in virginia, and i was running maybe 400mw. four hundred milliwatts. that still blows my mind a little. the band was 40m and conditions werent great honestly but it worked. had a couple other contacts too, one was pretty rough and we never really got a full exchange done but thats fine.

the whole rig fits in like a gallon ziplock bag. i know thats not revolutionary for people who have been doing this but for me coming from a 100w station in the shack it feels almost like cheating somehow, but in reverse? like the challenge is the fun part. anyway i just wanted to share because im pretty happy with it and also curious if anyone has tips for a good next build. i keep looking at the kx2 but thats a lot of money when building is so satisfying

that ohio contact on 400mw from virginia is genuinely solid, good propagation or not. 40m was being weird all last week so you picked a decent day if you got through at all.

for a next build i'd honestly look at the ubitx if you want something more capable but still a project. it's not as elegant as some of the single band stuff but you get a lot of bands and the community around it is huge so when something goes wrong (and something always goes wrong) theres usually someone who had the exact same issue. alternatively if you liked the simplicity of the rockmite style, the 4state qrp group stuff is really well documented and the kits are reasonably priced. i built their 1watter a few years back and it was a good weekend project.

the kx2 is nice but yeah its a different thing entirely. theres something about dragging out a rig you built yourself that a commercial radio just cant replicate, at least for me.

man this is inspiring me to actually finish the kit thats been sitting on my bench for like 6 months lol. im a newer ham and i got intimidated partway through and just kind of stopped. what did you use for the antenna situation? that part always confuses me for portable ops, like how long of a wire and do you need a tuner or what