How Low Can You Go? Try 0.1 watts!
There were 100mW QSOs during Wythall Radio Club’s QRP month in January.
John M6KET wound down the wick and used 0.1 watt to work Germany, France and England on 30m cw.
Upping the power to 500 milliwatts gave him QSOs with Germany and Hungary also on 30m.
Overall, 48 countries were worked using 5 watts or less on CW, and 50 countries using 10 watts or less on FT8.
It was harder work on SSB, with only 9 countries worked.
John M6KET and Kev G4XLO topped the CW and FT8 leader boards with 46 and 48 countries respectively.
Not bad for one month’s operating!
Using 1 watt on 30m, the big surprise for John was working C6AAE (Bahamas) at 16.45 UTC. He also had a QRZ from TZ4AM, but unfortunately Jeff in Mali wasn’t able to copy all John’s callsign.
Kev G4XLO in Torbay had spectacular results on FT8, working 48 DXCC entities despite gradually reducing power during the week – starting with 10 watts for the first week, then 5 watts, and finally 2 watts from the FT817.
Amongst his highlights were Antigua (an all time new one), Cyprus – the op. was Sergio Rebrov ex-Tottenham manager!, San Marino and Puerto Rico.
Kev found that 5 watts was enough to get across to west coast USA.
Lee G0MTN was also active, although other commitments limited his operating time using his new battery-powered QRPLabs QMX rig.
Darren GW7HOC used QRP in the past:
“I’ve worked VK4 from a tent in Cornwall on 20M SSB with 5W… I was in a tent! The antenna was an 80M mobile whip via an ATU.
I’ve crossed the Atlantic hundreds of times on 2.5W or less, mainly on SSB. I’ve crossed the pond many times on 1/2W or less on CW.
QRP is the best way to enjoy the hobby. No computers. No weak signal modes, either phone or CW.”
Chris G3YHF was mainly been on 7030kHz CW with his Rooster at 1w working around Europe.
He added a Sotabeams audio filter which made a big improvement to selectivity and a Kanga kits keyer module, but this left the operating desk now a bit of a rats nest!
You can read more about Chris’s adventures with the Rooster here.