+3000 miles on 1 watt!
Each January it’s Wythall Radio Club’s ‘How low can you go?’ month devoted to QRP operating.
And what great results! 41 countries worked on CW and 66 on digital modes. Several also on SSB.
Power was restricted to 5 watts CW and 10 watts SSB and digital – although several members thought this was too generous and used even less power!
Wire antennas were used – no beams to boost the dbs!
Kev G4XLO – our own DX member down there in Devon – worked 55 unique DXCC entities using digital modes, closely followed by Martin 2E0XFI (now M0XFI) with 48. Lee G0MTN worked 59 countries using multiple modes.
John M6KET topped the CW table with 38 countries. Meanwhile Neil worked 10 countries using SSB with a mix of HF and satellite.
To add some fun, we ran a ‘miles per watt’ challenge.
The top scorers were John 2E0XET with a stupendous 3543 miles/watt for his 1-watt CW QSO with Virginia USA and Lee G0MTN’s 713 miles/watt from his 10-watt digital contact with Argentina.
John used his trusty K2 (or was it his KX3?) and dog-leg doublet antenna. Great result!
Down in devon, Kev started off using 10 watts of FT8 but then dropped down to 5 watts for the last 2 weeks to see what could be achieved.
Here’s his report…..
“January was a really interesting month for me on the QRP challenge. I was on 10 watts digital the first couple of weeks and my main bands were 30m and 40m.
These gave me the normal European regulars as well as the USA one morning.
The fourth week it all came alive. I swapped between 5 watts and 10 watts maximum.
Tuesday, I had a totally awesome day, working China, Japan, Brazil as well as Puerto Rico and Ceuta & Melilla in one day, and yesterday bagged Turkey as well.
Was good to work Belize yesterday – that was my best DX for the week at over 5000 miles away – ones that got away included Venezuela, Indonesia and Brazil although they were quite audible for me in the shack.
It’s been encouraging too to see other members efforts thru the month.”
As well as everyones’ great QSOs, our QRP signals have also been spotted in a variety of locations, including Australia and New Zealand.
Several members have 10 watt maximum rigs, but others have decided to turn down the wick to see what they can work with QRP during the rest of the year.
Just for comparison, here’s our report from last year’s QRP challenge!!