[Elecraft] just 500W ?

[Nelson Moyer]

Interesting that little has been said about the ANTENNA. Power is only part
of the equation, and I suspect that there is more dB gain from upgrading
your antenna than upgrading your amplifier from 100 to 500 or 500 to 1500
watts. I've never operated with more than 600 watts power output, but I sure
noticed the improvement when I switched from a HF6V to a TH-11. That station
improvement took me from 305 confirmed to No. 1 Honor Roll. Yes, 1500 watts
may get you there faster, but 500 watts is all you really need to do the
job.

Nelson, KU0A

-----Original Message-----
From: elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Hector Padron
Sent: Tuesday, January 25, 2011 3:37 PM
To: Wayne Burdick
Cc: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] just 500W ?


Yeah,yeah,yeah, I know all about qrp,I started in hamradio when I was 13
years old,I am 62 now,you figure how long ago,my first QRP was a 6V6 tube
oscilating with a xtal on 7005 and that thing made barely 2W and with a
dipole I worked in less than a year more than 100 countries in CW from my CO
land BUT those were years where the bands were not so crowded and they were
not so noisy and the solar cycles were great BUT today with the hundred
thousand stations filling the bands,the high band noise,the terrible
propagation,QRP working is not the same,besides the courtesy of those old
times its gone forever,bands are plagued by guys using full legal power OR
MORE who has no respect for anybody and the actual rules is have power or
not make a contact,most of the times unless you have a great beam antenna on
40M you won't do much with a QRP,you need to have those 500W from your amp
or more.Its tough today to survive in the bands jungle sorrounded by lions
who  want to smash your poor signal and you only have a razor blade to
defend yourself. "Life is too short for QRP ! "
 
 
AD4C

"If freedom means something,it is the right to tell others what they don't
want to hear" –George Orwell

--- On Tue, 1/25/11, Wayne Burdick <n6kr at elecraft.com> wrote:


From: Wayne Burdick <n6kr at elecraft.com>
Subject: Re: just 500W ?
To: "Hector Padron" <ad4c2008 at yahoo.com>
Cc: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2011, 8:10 PM


> 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.

I connected a hand key and a battery in series, paid out a roll of guy wire
and tossed it on the roof, then started listening around the rig's 40-m
frequency with my Hallicrafters SX101. A guy up in Los Angeles was calling
CQ, and when he came back to me, I nearly fell off my chair. 200 miles on
200 mW, with an unmatched wire laying on the roof and a 9-V battery!

A few months later someone gave me an HT37 transmitter (100 W). First thing
I did was turn the drive down to nearly zero, measured my output at 200 mW,
and worked New York (2500 miles) on 20 m.

Life's not too short for *that* :)

OTOH, I'm quite proud of our engineering staff's achievement with the
KPA500.

Wayne
N6KR





      
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