When I got home from work on Friday my Hilltopper 20 had arrived. So I wolfed down dinner, kissed the wife and headed to my radio room. The Hilltopper is a radio designed by none other than Dave Benson K1SWL of Small Wonder Labs fame. The Hilltopper is kitted and sold by the Four State QRP Group. I bought one that was already built by another QRPer. You can read all about the kit on the club website and I might mention that is it one sale right now...you can save $10.00
My Hilltopper isn't acting quite right. I tune to 14060 and it transmits on 14062. I am also having some issues with the receive being on the wrong frequency as well. So I have signed up for the support group on groups.io and will get this figured out. 20m has been dead as a door nail all weekend...at least in the CW band. I think everyone must be running the ARRL SSB contest this weekend.
The Hilltopper can put out about 7 watts with a fully charged 12v battery. I can't wait to have a QSO with it.
I was able to get on the air for a bit this afternoon, and knocked out four contacts, but no new states. I had to go down to 7052 and call for SKCC, I managed to work GA, NC, NJ, and MD with the K1 at 5 watts. The A index is at 12 and we're seeing no sunspots right now so it's pretty tough sledding. I am going to try hard to get the Hilltopper 20 going in the right direction and between it and my Norcal 20 I hope to make contacts in the western states I need for my WAS efforts.
Anyway, thanks for checking in. Next weekend we are doing a VE test session for 40 people that are finishing up a county CERT training class. That will be fun!
Best 73 de KB9BVN
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