[Elecraft] K3 and QRP

[Gary Gregory]

*I have been reading the QRP posts with interest over the last few days and
last night I was enjoying ssb qso's with an EU station followed by another
for about an hour.

I guess somebody decided to ruin my day and placed me on the spot
collector. As the number of signals seemed to multiply, I remembered the
comments about qrp so I started to wind back the KPA-500 and in the end
went to standby and wound the K3 slowly down to 9W on ssb.

Still the stations continued to call and then I made my biggest mistake of
the evening, I told a station I was running 9W and somehow the EU stations
multiplied yet again and it wasn't until 11PM local time that the band gave
up.

This is the first time I have operated as a QRP (well it was only 9W) for
an hour and taught me to pay attention more carefully to how I spoke,
phonetics and conduct on the air. Was it fun?.....you bet, I felt I had
accomplished something other than just working some 200 contacts, I was a
little weary at the end, but, I had a smile as big as all outdoors.

I have decided to work more qrp in the days ahead and I look forward to the
challenge of getting through the EU QRM and calling a few stations. I will
resist the temptation to announce I am qrp when calling..:-)

Thanks for all the postings on qrp, I never knew what I was missing.

73's
Gary
*
-- 
Gary
VK4FD - Motorhome Mobile
Elecraft Equipment
K3 #679, KPA-500 #018
Living the dream!!!