OK, so I came to the group today looking for information on a Beaconator kit I've just acquired :-) and I stumbled across my old posts from earlier this year.
Basically I was up to something!
Some folks who know me might remember a stunt I did a few years ago when I soldered a QRPme RM][ ver1 kit on the highest hill in my native Yorkshire. I completed the build with a gas soldering iron and then used the rig to make my needed 4 QSOs to claim the SOTA points. Those SOTA points took my overall score to 1000, thus gaining me the coveted 'SOTA Mountain Goat' award.
A SOTA activator score may be made up from summit points - the score for the hill, and bonus points - additional points for activating during an arbitrarily defined difficult season - usually winter time. (England's winter bonus period runs from? December 1 to March 15). My activator score is a mixture of both summit and bonus points.
I was coming up to 1000 SOTA activator summit points (score without winter bonus) so I decided to do another Al fresco soldering event. I hear so many folks saying that surface mount soldering is too difficult and they won't even try it. I wanted to set out to show that surface mount soldering is not at all scary and can even be done at the top of a mountain!
I looked and looked for a surface mount radio kit, but I drew a blank. I wanted to do a transmitter only, so that I could use a proven set-up for everything else. Given that it's low in the solar cycle, I thought that I'd need at least a couple of watts of RF. I deemed that 40m would be a good band.
I hadn't designed a circuit board before but I was pretty well forced to try, as a 2 watt 40m 0805 surface mount CW transmitter kit is simply not available as far as I can tell.
With a little help from a friend, I managed to layout a PCB using KiCad at the back end of last year. I admit to 'borrowing' the circuit, with a couple of mods, from a kit available online (but as a through -hole design). I reasoned that the PCB is entirely for my own use. I sent off the Gerber files to a Chinese fab house and within 2 weeks around Christmas time I was the proud owner of 5 PCBs!
Unfortunately Covid 19 meant that SOTA was not allowed for a few months, so I had to wait until the lockdown had been lifted.
I built up a transmitter board at home to see if the thing would work, I'm happy to say that the board worked, although a mod was deemed to be needed, nevertheless I had a board that would serve my purpose.
My chosen summit was Ingleborough SOTA G/NP-005. I ascended early to give myself plenty of time to attempt the surface mount build. Using the same trusty butane iron from my previous al fresco build, I put the surface transmitter kit together quite easily. I made just one mistake which I caught almost immediately, I'd mixed up a 1000pF and a 100pF capacitor.
To my relief and surprise the transmitter kit fired up upon first application of power and my QRPometer was showing a healthy 2 watts of output.
I erected a 40m dipole and hooked up a Sudden Storm][ receiver and mk1 Tuna Helper to the transmitter kit. It didn't take long to work my needed 4 QSOs, in fact I ended up working 12!
So, surface mount isn't scary - if I can do it on Ingleborough mountain with a portable iron, anyone can do it with a proper iron in the shack!
73, Colin, M1BUU
