Digital capable MTR with Bluetooth adaptor so they are not tethered to the radio. It wouldn't  be hard to do.

At least it did last weekend. On Saturday I got out my new MTR to try out the linked EFHW I just built for it. I also took the opportunity to save a CQ to the radio's keyer memory. I was experimenting with using the beacon mode where it would continue to send CQ until I stopped it but I was having trouble testing it because someone would come back to me at the end of the first CQ every time I tried it. I almost never get that kind of success on my QRO rig and permanent dipole. I don't know if it was luck or good propagation conditions or the fact that the memory keyer has a better fist than I do so people are more willing to answer (my QRO rig doesn't have a memory keyer). Whatever the reason, it has made me a belever in portable QRP. It gives me some hope that I'll actually successfully activate some summits this summer. I just hope that it doesn't work too well and I wind up having to deal with a pileup. I'm still green when it comes to morse code so I don't know if I could handle multiple summit chaser call signs coming at me at all at once.

Bummer I missed you Gil. I was outside playing with my new MTR and wasn't checking the forum. I'm still outside playin with my MTR if someone wants to give a shout out. I've got it on 40 meters at the moment.

If you get it figured out I'd love to hear how you do it. Or maybe, you might even consider making a few extra  ::) At the risk of getting in trouble with Gil by turning this thread into something Entrepreneurial I'll wager I'm not the only one who would be interested. Now that I have my MTR and am hoping to do a little summitting myself this summer it would be just the thing. I built a linked EFHW like you have but agree that a trapped antenna would be more convenient for working all three bands. Speaking of the linked EFHW, how did you come up with six feet for the counterpoise? Trial and error? The chart that came with the sota tuner seems to think the counterpoise has to be about half as long as the radiator.

MTR is on its way ;D

Everybody seems pretty pleased with the MTR. I've read pretty high praise of it from others as well, like WG0AT who has used a lot of different QRP rigs on sota activations. I'm thinking I'll get it and try it on for size this summer. I don't think I'll have any trouble selling it if I eventually decide to go with something else or if I'm lucky enough to grab one of the new MTR5 kits.
For some reason the Weber tribander has really caught my eye. It just seems like a good next-level kit to build after the rockmite. QRPKITS has been down for a while with its change of ownership which has put me in this place where now I don't have time to build a kit before this summer. I'm thinking I'll still get the tribander when QRPKITS comes back  and make it this winter even though I'll already have the MTR. Might order the tribander in bands the MTR doesn't have to round out my band selection like 10, 15, and 17. Then again, like Gil says, I might find that 20 and 40 are all I ever want.

Thanks for your free opinions guys! What got me looking at the HB1A in the first place is that I had a QSO with a guy who was using one and I asked him about it. He used to own a Weber PFR3 and he preferred his HB1A over the PFR3 for the reasons previously mentioned and he felt that it had a much more sensitive receiver. Can anybody comment on the performance aspect of weber radios compared to others? In another thread I saw that cockpitbob was talking about an upgrade to the MTR that improves its recieve sensitivity. Perhaps that helps to close any gap between it and the HB1A. Then again, the MTR is a different radio than Weber's PFR3 so maybe there was no performance gap to begin with.
Thanks for the idea about nudging the shipment of the MTR along KK0G. It's worth a shot.

The rockmite is really fun. Every QSO with it is exciting. The other day I tried to have a QSO with KK0G but the rock's freq was in use and stayed in use for a long time. It would have been nice to have the option of moving up or down the band a little to a clear spot. I did eventually make a contact that day but not with KK0G. This summer I will be going to my home state of Washington. I hope to try being an activator of summits with SOTA. there is a four point summit that has not been activated yet and I will be staying with my in laws who live halfway up the hill. It will take me 20 minutes to hike to the top from the door of the house. There are lots of 6 and 8 point summits within a half hour drive radius so I will enjoy having an excuse to hike up some of them that I have seen all my life but never hiked up. 
All this to say, I'm already anxious to get another QRP rig. One that is a little more flexible than the rockmite and will give me a better chance of having successful activations (4 QSOs minimum for summit activation). So which to get?
I'm into building them but don't know if I'll have time to do it before this June when I leave. I'm sure I will eventually build something but probably not before this winter. In the meantime I want to buy something ready to go for this summer.
LNR has the mountain topper prefabbed. It's supper small and has low power consumption. Youkits HB1A and EK1A are cheaper, have a real tuning knob, a wide range receiver and veriable width IF filter for listening to SSB QSOs anywhere on the band, and an optional internal battery. It's a bit bigger and heavier but that's about the only downside I can see. Does anyone have any words of wisdom for me? Is there another option that is in this $250 ballpark that I'm going to kick myself for overlooking?  I've actually already ordered the mountain topper (grabbed one before the limited run ran out) but they take a long time in processing the order so after looking at the youkits I'm tempted to cancel my order and get one of those.

I definitely like the idea of putting a touch keyer in it. I'll have to open my sota tuner and try and gauge the room for it as well. Thanks for the ideas!

RockMite is now in its home and on the air. If I enjoy using this, and I think I will, my first contact on it had me super stoked, I'm sure I'll want to get a more flexible QRP rig. I'm thinking MTR, weber tribander, or youkits HB1A or EK1A.

Thanks,
Yeah, a sked is a great idea. It's probably the best way to make contacts with a rockmite since they don't put out an overly strong signal and of course are rockbound. I'd do one now but I have to run off to church and then the inlaws for lunch. I will definitely take you up on it soon though ;D

Well I'm stoked! So I'm going to write a long post about my rockmite in case anybody is bored enough to read it. The board has been sitting in my shack, finished except for the connectors for months. I just couldn't decide on its enclosure. I really like the altoids tin but I wanted to use the volume and speed pots and they wouldn't fit. So while it sat there due to indecision, I bought a telescoping fiberglass 20' fishing pole, enough wire for a 20 meter efhw, 4 feet of rg-174 and built a sota tuner. I was now ready to deploy but it was still waiting on the rockmite. Finally I decided to put it in a international coffee tin. It is big enough to mount the pots and I could put a 8-aaa cell battery pack inside it cutting down on the clutter of my portable station. So I laid out the position of the pots, switches and connectors, drilled the holes and soldered the connectors to the board. Before stuffing it all in there I did a smoke test on it yesterday. I plugged some headphones into it and turned it on. I got an ear peircing buzz from it. It would go away if I turned the audio gain al the way down but if I got over about 1/4 volume it would come back with a vengeance and its tone would drop the more I turned the pot up. I went to bed a bit frustrated. Next day I took it into my office/shack and plugged it into my antenna. It would hear some signals but I couldn't turn them up to hear them well without that squeal coming back. Even worse, in my shack it had a thumping sound in receive mode that would increase in volume with more audio gain. On the plus side, the keyer was working and it seemed to be transmitting. My Kenwood could hear it very well even though the kenwood didn't have the antenna plugged into it. The antenna was plugged into the rockmite. But with the rockmite in recieve, it produced a pretty loud tone in the kenwood just above the transmit freq.  so I took the rockmite back out of the shack because it didn't have that thump the night before at the dining room table and sure enough the thump went away. I then I replace my over-the-ear headphones with some cheap earbuds and the squeal went away too. It seemed to be working normally. So here comes the exciting part. I take it into the back yard, still without an enclosure. String up my 20 meter efhw for the first time on my fishing pole in a kind of inverted-v shape and plug the sota tuner into the rockmite. it was skcc wes day so I knew there'd be plenty of CW activity on the air. At first I didn't hear anything. Then it tuned the sota tuner and signals started to pop out. None were super strong and I had the audio gain all the way up. Now and again I'd hear s signal strong enough to copy but I would respond to their CQs but they would not hear me. I'd send a few CQs myself but got no replies. Without an s-meter and not having listened to signals from this rig before I had no way of judging the signal strength of the stations I was hearing. Then I heard a strong signal boom in so loud I almost took the earbuds out of my ears. I figured if he doesn't hear me no one will so I answered his CQ and he came back to me! He gave me a 449 rst. Come to find out he was in Indiana, exactly 1388 miles away! The 20 meter skip must have been perfect for our stations. It will probably never work again but it's cool that it worked even just once.

I was away for a bit. You still on? Tomorrow I'll be home for most of afternoon and evening. I'm on Mountain daylight time.

It's probably getting too late for 17 meters tonight but if you want to try it out tomorrow I'll be around the shack from around noonish and on.

Congrats! I understand the feeling all too well. In fact I've been away from CW for a few months and I had to go through the shaky sending hand and all that when I got back on the air a couple of weeks ago. But you get past the nervousness quickly and it just gets funner and funner. Funner is a word, right?