so i've been licensed about two years now and mostly just used my handheld and borrowed a friend's HF radio a few times but i always wanted to build something myself. picked up a Mountain Topper MTR-3B kit a few months ago and it sat in the box forever because i was scared to mess it up. finally sat down last weekend and just did it.

took me most of saturday, my soldering is not great but i watched a bunch of videos and took my time. powered it up and honestly expected smoke or nothing and instead i heard signals. like actual CW signals coming through. i was so stunned i just sat there for a minute.

made my first contact with it sunday morning, 5 watts into a wire i threw over a tree in the backyard, worked a guy in Ohio from upstate NY. i know thats not crazy DX or anything but i built the thing myself and it actually works and that feels really good. thinking about taking it out to a park next weekend for a real SOTA-style outing. does anyone have tips for portable ops with these little rigs, like what antenna are people actually using when they go out?

that ohio contact is more impressive than you think when you consider you built the radio yourself, honestly. a lot of guys never get that far.

for portable ops the end fed half wave is probably what most people settle on after trying a bunch of stuff. you can get or build a little 9:1 or 49:1 unun, throw one end up a tree and the other end just slopes down, works great. the pac-12 antenna and similar telescoping verticals are popular too if you dont always have trees. but for QRP specifically i find wire antennas just behave better and you can tune them to the band youre on. bring a small tuner if your rig doesnt have one built in, MTR doesnt if i remember right, so youll want something like a small z-match or one of those little elecraft t1 tuners.

main thing for portable is just keep it simple. you can go down a rabbit hole of the perfect antenna system but a dipole cut for the band you want to operate and some paracord to hang it is honestly all you need to have fun. enjoy the park outing, those are the best.

dude same thing happened to me with a QCX mini last year, i was totally shocked when it actually worked lol. the MTR is a great little radio too. for the park i just use a random wire with a tuner and it gets the job done, nothing fancy. have fun with it