[Elecraft] The Joy of QRP

[Rick M0LEP]

On Thu 26 Sep Stephen Roberts wrote:
> at least you had a nice day in the great outdoors.

....which is at least half the point of activities like SOTA. It'd be 
nice if the summits nearest to me were more interesting, but I'd have to 
move house to make that the case.

> My latest "adventure" was a QSO with a station in Japan on 20m yesterday

QRP sometimes throws in surprises like that.

> I don't think my antenna is up to it.

Experimenting with antennas is a big part of the challenge. The KX3's 
ATU makes that a bit easier. One thing that's pretty much guaranteed is 
that the antennas you've cut and tuned to near perfection in your back 
garden will find some interesting way to behave when stuck up on a rocky 
summit, or wherever, and the ATU helps keep them in line...

My main QTH antennas could do with a re-think, though. I dream of having 
something steerable with a bit of directionality... ;)

> the pleasure and challenge of low power QSO's makes up for the 
> occasional inability to make a contact.

Heh. First time I took a radio to Kenya, back in mid 2011 when the 
sunspots were all but absent, all I had was an FT817. Making contacts 
from there with 5 watts was quite hard work; I think I averaged fewer 
than two QSOs per day overall...

-- 
... 73, Rick, M0LEP