[Elecraft] just 500W ?

[Jim Sheldon]

The 1st non Heathkit rig I ever built (1st was a 90W CW transmitter I built from scratch when first licensed back in 1963) was a little 2 transistor MOPA rig (2N706 VFO driving a 2N2219 PA) which put out about 750 mw.  Receiver was a Collins R-390A on loan from the Army MARS program and I was living on Fort Devens, Massachusetts, an Army base 35 miles West of Boston.  I was net control for the Eastern Mass CW traffic net on 80 meters 3 nights a week and even though I had a Heath HW-16, I often used the little transistor TX to run the net.  First 3 nights I had it on, never told anyone and only one person commented that my signal was just S8 so I might want to check my antenna connections.  When I told them what I was using for a transmitter, no one would believe me until I had several of them over to see it.  It covered from 3.5 to 3.8 MHz.  I put it on 3.510 and called CQ.  On the 3rd call, an OK3 came back and gave me a 579 signal report.  The net guys never gave me any more grief about the "puny" little solid state rig.

Ain't it fun Wayne?  

Another good story happened at a tailgate swapfest here in Wichita.  I had my K2 and KX1 set up with a PAC-12 vertical hooked to about 80 feet of RG-174 (yes, 174) and was showing how the KX1 could work cross mode CW to SSB on 20 meters when I heard Vello, ES1QD working a bunch of stateside guys and the pileup was getting pretty deep.  I quickly switched the antenna to the K2, dialled in the frequency and turned up the speaker.  Pretty soon a bunch gathered around and when I picked up the microphone, one of the big QRO guys started ragging on me and telling everyone around us about how I really thought I could bust a pileup on SSB with that puny K2 @ 5 watts!

You should have seen his jaw drop when I keyed the microphone and said W0EB/QRP.  Vello came back and said "Everybody stand by, QRP station go again."  I called him again and we had a nice chat for a couple of minutes and he gave me a 57 signal report.  I'd attach the QSL card here, but this reflector doesn't allow HTML or attachments.  That ended the "life's too short for QRP" ribbing I used to get.  It also got a couple of the guys turned on to the K2.  

Jim - W0EB

>> The shirt I wear sometimes in the hamfests says up front : "Life
>> is
>> too short for QRP"
>>
> In stark contrast, the first "rig" I built, when I was 13, was a
> 200-
> milliwatt-output crystal oscillator that used half a dozen parts
> with
> their leads twisted together. No PCB, no solder, no box. It was
> ugly.
> But it worked.
>