[Elecraft] New ham and the KX3

[Dominic Baines]

Sean,

Great location especially if you can be operating close the water (sea) 
when resonant vertical antennas (I use vertical dipoles on a telescoping 
10m fishing pole) should allow you to work the world qrp. I also have a 
buddipole and it works fine in vertical configuration especially close 
to the water on 10-20m and you can tune it so that you do not need a 
tuner at all. The combination is also very portable.

You do NOT need a large amplifier. Yes it can help but you are going to 
learn a lot more and have fun experimenting with antennas and using an 
amplifier tends to bring other problems with it... interference, if your 
development is twitchy about amateur radio you will bring lots of 
attention your way if you start to create any interference.

At qrp power levels CW (morse code) will allow contacts over much 
further distances than SSB (phone) so spend time and learn/improve your 
CW skills apart from anything else most of the DX peditions will be 
using CW first before any other modes.

72

Dom
M1KTA

I'll be in C5 (Gambia) 27th Feb to 10th March. Holiday with wife so I 
might not be on the air the whole time but if last time was anything to 
go by RBN/DX cluster will pick me up after about 5 seconds and should be 
an easy qso from Florida.

On 26/02/2014 00:23, Sean Wall wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I recently got my Technician license and I'm working on my General and Extra.  I'm looking to get my first rig and I'm interested in the KX3. I was considering pairing it with a Buddipole antenna, as my development doesn't allow permanent antennas.  While I use the KX3 at home, will I get decent range with the 10 watt output?  In other words, would I need the 100 watt amp to make the kx3 a decent base station?  I am also planning on bringing the KX3 with me when my wife and I drive up north from Florida (where we live).  Since I'm new to amateur radio, I don't yet have a feel for how much power 10 watts is w.r.t. RF frequencies.  I plan on operating mostly 6 and 10 m initially until I upgrade my license.  Thanks for any help you can provide!
>
> -Sean
>