Mountain Toppers are Available

ToddDubya

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If you want one, hurry up. There's already one less in stock!

 
I think I got one of the early ones, but I'm not sure. There might have been 60- or 70-something left when I ordered. It's been about a week and no shippy. I'm trying to be patient; I just hope I'm not at the tail end of the 3-4 weeks (or more).

While I've been waiting I ordered an American Morse paddle kit (Porto Paddle), watched every video I could find looking for how people package these (cases, etc), filled up my Amazon cart with stuff, found a QRP Guys antenna kit I might build, wired up a 3-cell 18650 holder for 11.1v, and picked up some diodes to make a short jumper for LiFePO4 batteries to bring the voltage down under 12v. I'm holding off buying anything else until I have this in my hands.

Update: 2/25/22: MTR4 V2.3 ordering now paused. We appreciate the big response and fast sellout of first 100 units in about 24 hours! We have parts inventory in house for another run after these and will open up ordering again as soon as we ship all existing orders.​

For those that have placed orders, we will process those in the order received. We are already shipping units and expect to have them all shipped in the next 3-4 weeks but could be LONGER. We will do our best to get units to you ASAP. Thanks so much for your patience and we know you will enjoy this radio!​

 
Still no shipping on the mountain topper. My American Morse paddle kit arrived today and was missing the springs. I was really looking forward to putting that together and playing with it.
 
Just heard back from the guy at American Morse and my springs will be on their way. I had to start putting some of it together and it's going to be really nice. The machining is very nice.
 
Those units look cool, in a minimalist 80's cyberpunk way. I want one, but gotta finish learning CW first. Any update on your Mountain Topper?
 
Those units look cool, in a minimalist 80's cyberpunk way. I want one, but gotta finish learning CW first. Any update on your Mountain Topper?
No movement yet, and not for lack of refreshing the order status page. I finally ordered a bunch of accessories I wanted for it but was waiting for it to get here.

I'm still learning CW myself. I just got to B, which I should know, and boy am I having a hard time between D, B, and 6. D and B not so bad, but B and 6 I get right about 75% of the time. Kind of like H and 5 are too close for me.

D -..
B -...
6 -....

The mistake I made was learning 6 as dah followed by a pile of dits, knowing full well that B was coming and was just a smaller pile of dits. I think I just figured it would sort itself out. And it probably will eventually.
 
I was real tempted to get this kit to go with the Mtn Topper. It would get me the three bands I'm likely to use the most in one convenient package. But by the time I added the $10 shipping it seemed a bit steep for basically two toroids, two switches, and a circuit board.


So now I'm thinking about maybe a trapped tri-band vertical. It would be taller but not as tall as a 40m vertical would be. And a fun project to work on.
 
The springs got here today for the American Morse Porto Paddles. I got everything put together and mounted it to a chunk of old plastic cutting board "for now". Ultimately I'll get it onto something nicer. I've been fooling with the adjustments for a bit. Trouble is I don't really know what I like yet. It's a nice piece of kit. No ragerts.

No movement on the Mountain Topper yet. It's coming up on 3 weeks now. Fortunately the weather sucks and I haven't been able to work on any antennas for it anyway.
 
That looks like a neat solution for the 599Labs. I have a couple Bioenno LiFePO4 batteries and they're great. I ran Winter Field Day on my FT-818 at full blast (yeah, 6w) on a 3Ah battery, I noticed the voltage starting to droop a little the second day and switched to the bigger battery but I probably didn't have to. It was cold as balls that weekend, too.
 
I just heard back. I was one of the early orders, but they can only turn out a couple a day. I can't believe they can make a profit. Maybe this is a side business to something else. I'm okay waiting; I just hadn't heard anything and it had been a while. I can't wait to get it in my hands so I can suck at CW on a new radio.
 
We have movement! Barring any unforeseen disasters the Mountain Topper should be here on Monday.

Today I made up a short jumper cable with a couple diodes inline to drop the voltage from a LiFePO4 battery to the 12V the radio wants. They say it can tolerate >12v, but only if you have a really good match to the antenna.

I still have to test the 3-cell 18650 pack I wired up. If that's good to go, I expect it'll be my go to so I don't have to keep track of batteries. Continuity is there, but the 18650 holders didn't tolerate soldering as well as I would have liked.

Same for the 9v battery cable I made. That was a genius move. I took an old dead 9v, ripped it apart, took off the connector, and soldered leads to the back side. I thought that would be good if I ever took this on a plane so I can just buy 9v batteries when I get where I'm going so I don't risk the airline/TSA stealing my expensive batteries.
 
It. Has. Landed.

I'm doing some last minute testing on a power cable I made (to drop the battery voltage closer to 12v), then I can get her on the air. I find it hard to believe that other models are quite a bit smaller.

I've even removed the protective film off the display (after this picture was taken). So satisfying.

1681748278055.png
 
Okay, I just made up a power cable and messed around on a dummy load. Then I put it on my home antenna and tuned around a bit. Using the buttons to tune around is a little slow, but very useable. I looked for some POTA stations and even the weakest ones were readable (minus QSB), almost zero noise. It confirms selections in CW and will even read out the frequency you're on in CW. The frequency uses cut numbers, which I don't know, but would be handy if I was blind.

Also handy is the ability to enter a frequency using CW. I'll have to play with that some to see how it works, but it could be cool even if only to jump to the bottom of the band.

Three memories will probably come in handy some day. And the way you enter/edit them is slick. I've never used a memory keyer before, maybe they're all this way.

The controls seem very well thought out, without too many settings.

So far I have no complaints. I think this is gonna be a real fun radio to play with.
 
I think this guy gave me a pity QSO. QSB was pretty bad and I lost him before we really completed the QSO, but he showed up in my POTA Hunter Log, so I'll take it. We went back and forth a few times to get my call right before he faded away, but he got it right.

Not bad for a little QRP rig. The receive on this thing is incredible.

3217 km with 5w.

1681831250255.jpeg
 
I finally sorted out storage for this bad boy. I bought a small Amazon Basics case for a GoPro. A little trimming of the foam and I have a spot for the MT face down (to protect the face), my PortoPaddles II, and a 3x18650 battery holder I put together. In the little flap I put the power cables and my headphones.

Whatever antenna I bring will likely have to be separate. But this was pretty compact. Maybe in the future I'll buy the bigger version of this case so I can hold an antenna too, but realistically an antenna also means throw line, cordage, etc. which can add up.

1682103336923.jpeg

Amazon product ASIN B00PMMBBSGView: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PMMBBSG?
 
I was hammock portable today and I had a great time with the Mountain Topper. I was hunting POTA and my goal was 10 but I only made it to 7 or 8 before I couldn't take the black flies anymore. At first they weren't so bad, but it got to where I couldn't do anything but swat them and that was it.

The Mountain Topper is a really nice radio. The receive is incredibly quiet; all you hear is the CW. And I'm not sure what the filtering is, but the only time I heard other signals was when they were only 100-200 Hz away. Just very pleasant on the ears.

After fumbling with cords and pencils and my phone and all that, I turned the case around so the radio was on the left, and there's a little flap pocket on the right that held my notebook perfectly open.

The only issue I had was that I'd get interference from my phone. It seemed to come through the headphone and paddle cords. If I just moved it away a little bit it went away, but it was something to deal with. I think a ridge line organizer would solve that problem.

Gear:
  • Mountain Topper MTR-4B V2
  • Porta Paddle II by American Morse
  • Home brew triple 18650 cell battery
  • ENO hammock

1685577277519.png
 
Just started getting in to POTA stuff - which, to me so far, means keeping an eye on the POTA spots web page and working the stations I can hear with QRO and one call.... What I have found for all of the P's near me is that there are very few CW activations.... Talking to a local buddy that is in to the chase and is in the top 10 chasers, he says activation is 'where it's at', so will have to do that one of these days..... Looks fun 'Dubya...

UJay
 
Yeah, that's about how I do it. Activating looks much more fun than hunting. I've always got some excuse why I don't do it. Right now it's the black flies that are just miserable. For the longest time I was worried about running a pileup, but I've done some mini pileups during Winter Field Day and the New England QSO Party and it's not as bad as it sounds from the other end.

I've been tempted to just say the hell with it and start activating in CW. I've gotten better, and can tolerate people going off script some, but really once you get their info it doesn't matter if you don't get the rest. Just "TU, 73 de MYCALL e e" and move on.

One guy I worked yesterday had a hard time hearing me. I had to send my call maybe a dozen times. He gets it, I send him R R R. He comes back with some minute long monologue that I thought was him signing off or whatever. But then I'd hear my call with question marks. I'd send R R R. Another monologue. I have no idea what he was asking, I sent him a signal report and my state a few times. I was not in MA, so maybe the state didn't match and he wasn't sure he had the call right. Everyone else he worked was just wham, bam, thank you ma'am. 🤷‍♂️

Anyway, it's good to know the Mountain Topper gets out there. Until now I've only used it at home. It was a good test for the batteries I put together. It draws 27mA on receive and 750mA on transmit (at 12V input), so even with the 18650s I should be able to run a long time. Some day I'd like to do the 9v battery challenge.
 
I had the Mountain Topper, code name "Big Red", out today and that thing is just so sweet. The receive is so well filtered you either get no sound or you get the beeps and boops. I worked a station in WY I could hear just well enough to copy.

I only had a 20m antenna with me, and it seemed pretty quiet but I worked 5 parks in about an hour, then I took a break and when I came back it was even moar deader. I could still hear a lot of stations, but must have been S0.00001 so I didn't respond.

There were only two parks I could hear and couldn't work. One couldn't get my call right and I think he just cut bait, and another I gave up on because the pileup was unruly. How hard is it to at least wait for the last guy to respond with dit-dit before you start sending? Or if the activator ends every QSO with 73 de HISCALL, don't start sending as soon as you hear 73.

Anyway, just another after action report on the Mountain Topper. I'm keeping an eye out for older models that have different band options.
 
This could be an excuse to get back into QRP! Have built several QRP kits in the past but have been off the air for some years now.
 
This could be an excuse to get back into QRP! Have built several QRP kits in the past but have been off the air for some years now.
Thomas has a great blog and youtube presence. He got a lifetime achievement award for QRP at Dayton Hamvention this year.

 
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