Was looking for an ultra light and small radio for doing SOTA as while the IC-705 is a great portable radio you start to feel the weight of it and the ancillaries after a while when hiking up a hill.
I had seen few posts on the SOTA site about the QMX and its single band precursors and thought they looked interesting. It started as a CW only radio but now they can do digital and SSB modes, in a device not much bigger than a pack of cards.
There are 3 band options for the QMX, 80-20m , 20-10m or 60 to 15m. I went for the 80-20m one.
So if you decide to get one you have 2 choices, order one and get in the queue (it’s between 4-6 months to get one built and tested by the manufacturer) or order the kit, get it in a few weeks and build it yourself.
I went with option two, how hard can it be??
Hard is the wrong word, its not hard if you follow the instructions and have a lot of patience.
I built mine over a week, working in stages and trying not to rush it.
It was going well until I had nearly finished and managed to install 2 components upside down, NUTS!
Rather than rushing and making more mistakes as I was frustrated, I called it quits for that evening.
A new evening and time to fix my mistake. This time it went ok and I got it all together. I tried turning it on and it worked, hurrah!
After a few tests, I realised the buttons were not working properly so I checked the joints and saw some of the joints were not quite right, a few mins later and testing again and it was working.
Time to test it, as my morse is not that good yet, I used the preprogrammed messages and sent test CQ was picked up by the RBN, WAHOO, it works and the signal is getting out.
Very happy with the way this kit and project has turned out.
