[Elecraft] Your Opinion: The realit..

[dlajr at bellsouth.net]

 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 <n6kr at 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
> 
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