so i've been a ham for about 3 years now and always ran 100w because honestly i just figured more power = more contacts and why would anyone voluntarily handicap themselves. well my buddy talked me into building a little BitX40 kit last winter and i finally took it out on a hike a few weeks ago and man i completely get it now.

we went up to a ridge about 4 miles in and i had the rig in a small drybag along with a little LiFePO4 pack, a mini tuner, and a wire antenna i just threw over a branch. made like 8 contacts in under 2 hours running maybe 7 watts, one of them was into ontario from western pennsylvania which felt insane for that power level. the whole setup weighed maybe 3 lbs total.

anyway i'm hooked. thinking about building something even smaller, maybe one of the MTR kits or looking at a used KX2. anyone have opinions on the MTR vs just saving up for the KX2? i like the idea of building but the KX2 seems so polished. also does anyone run a dedicated QRP antenna or just use whatever random wire you can string up?

welcome to the dark side haha. seriously though that feeling of making a contact on low power from a hilltop never really goes away, ive been doing SOTA for like 6 years and it still gets me every time.

on the MTR vs KX2 question -- honestly depends on what you want out of it. the MTR is a fantastic little rig, very purpose built, great for CW on the trail but thats really all it does. no bells and whistles, no display to speak of, very lightweight. if you love CW and just want contacts it's hard to beat for the size and weight. the KX2 is a totally different animal, built in tuner, SSB capable, great filtering, the spot function if you add the bluetooth thing. but its also like 5-6x the price so thats a real factor.

for antennas i just use a linked dipole most of the time, cut for 40 and 20 with the links for 40. its not fancy but its light and it works. EFHW transformers are popular too and a lot of people swear by them for portable, easier to deploy with just one feedpoint.

i built an MTR3B last year and its genuinely tiny, like fits in a shirt pocket tiny. but yeah its cw only and the controls take some getting used to because theres like 4 buttons doing everything. if you're comfortable with cw and dont need ssb at all its probaly the most bang per gram youre gonna find. that ontario contact on 7 watts is really not that surprising once you get a feel for how propagation works, 40m in the evening can be ridiculous sometimes even at low power