so i've been putting off building a QRP kit for probably two years now, kept telling myself i didn't have the skills or the right tools. finally just bit the bullet and ordered a Mountain Topper MTR-3B and spent about three evenings on it last week. the SMD stuff was honestly less scary than i expected once i got a decent magnifying lamp sorted out.

first contact was on 40m running about 4 watts into a random wire i threw up in the backyard and i worked a station in Virginia (im in Ohio) on my first call. i know thats not a huge deal for a lot of you but i was kind of floored that it just... worked. like immediately.

only issue i ran into is the audio seems a little low on the sidetone when im doing CW, not sure if thats a component issue or just how the rig is. anyone else build one of these and notice that? overall though super happy with it and already looking at antenna options for taking it out portable. been reading about end fed half waves and they seem popular for this kind of thing but open to suggestions

congrats on the first build, MTR-3B is a great kit to start with. Steve Weber designs are really solid and well documented so if something seems off theres usually a good explanation in the build notes or the yahoo group archives (or whatever replaced those).

on the sidetone thing — theres a trim pot inside for adjusting that, pretty sure its labeled on the board. just a small screwdriver and you can dial it up to whatever feels comfortable. i like mine a little lower actually so i dont fatigue on long sessions but thats personal preference.

for portable antennas the EFHW is genuinely hard to beat for simplicity, especially if you wind your own 49:1 unun. you can get the whole thing including wire under 200 grams easy and it'll load up on multiple bands. i use a 40m EFHW for most of my SOTA stuff and it just works. dont overthink the antenna, get out and operate is my advice.

oh man Virginia from Ohio on 4 watts is pretty solid, 40m can be weird during the day but when it's working it really works. i built a KX1 years ago as my first kit and had almost the exact same feeling when it worked the first time, like wait thats it?

im curious what paddle you're using with it if you're doing CW, that always seems to be the thing people underestimate when going portable — the paddle setup matters way more than i thought it would