During the last sunspot cycle, I was experimenting (playing around) with my K2 (S/N 1757). I heard a CQ with an "F" call sign. I gave him a call from here in South Carolina, and had a long and enjoyable QSO with him. He was at a police department's amateur radio club in the south of France!
After the QSO ended, I noticed that I had turned the RF power all the way down during my experimenting, and had forgotten to turn it back up! I checked the power level and found that it was set at 0.3 watts! Yes, 1/3 of a watt for a 30 minute SSB QSO from South Carolina to the south of France! My antenna? It was 90 feet of black, 14 gauge wire that I had bought at Lowe's! End fed with an SGC-230 autotuner. It runs from an upstairs bathroom window to a pine tree. It's up about 25 feet at the high end! For me, personally, that yields a greater sense of accomplishment than a kilowatt amp! Of course, I have been playing around with QRP since elementary school in the 1950's. I have built *many* QRP rigs, and have always had great success with all of them! It's great fun to me! Dan Allen KB4ZVM K2 S/N 1757 -------------- Original message from wayne burdick <n...@elecraft.com>: -------------- > QSL, Jim, and I can empathize (Belmont, CA is not exactly a hot-bed of > RF activity either). > > But I will lay down the following challenge for you: Next time you hear > an S9+20 station calling CQ, try turning the K3 down to 1 watt and > calling him, just for grins. All other things being equal, if he's > running a KW, you should be about S7 at his QTH. > > Cheap thrill, maybe, but a thrill nonetheless. And that's the essence > of QRP. > > Wayne > N6KR > > On Mar 5, 2009, at 9:06 AM, JIM DAVIS wrote: > > > Wayne, > > > > Our niche in this fabulous hobby of ours is chasing DX (new > > entities-DXCC) and don't really > > care about QRP per/se as our radio location is marginal at best here > > in "ant. un-friendly" > > Concord, Ca. so most of the stuff that I work is worked using 100w., > > but if band conditions > > dictate (including pile-ups!) we'll lite off the Alpha 91b amp to make > > ourselves heard. Believe > > me though, even sometimes 1KW IS NOT ENOUGH from our marginal area. So > > QRP is definitely out > > from here locally. > > > > Jim/nn6ee > > --- > > http://www.elecraft.com > > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
