The QRP month for me has come and gone, but I learned some good stuff and had a really good time. First of all, I have to say that I had a lot more fun that I really thought that I would. It was work at times, I didn’t pull in any new DXCC but I still managed to have a load of QSOs and enjoy myself.I ended with 31 QSOs for the month, all QRP. I worked 14 different DXCC. I only worked 80, 40 and 20 meters during this time, but there was plenty of action there. I probably could have spent some time on 17 meters since the propagation is usually similar to 20m but with less activity.
I had 4 SSB QSOs, all on 20 meters. I had 5 CW QSOs, and they were on 40 and 20 meters. One random contact in PSK63 on 40 to Suriname, and the remaining 21 contacts were in PSK31 mode. By far, PSK31 was the easiest mode to operate, and these QSOs were the easiest of the bunch, followed by CW. The SSB QSOs were all hard work, and required a period of screaming into the microphone to make the signal reports, etc really happen. Making contacts into Eastern Europe and Russia across a 4-5,000 mile path on PSK was smooth.
I used the 20m dipole, the G5RV on 80 and 40, and during the end of the month started testing out the Par End Fedz 10/20/40 end fed dipole intended for QRP operations. While I didn’t do a whole lot of testing with it on 20m, it did seem to operate well there. I spent a fair amount of time with in on 40 meters, and it really performed well there. I also spent the last two week or so running totally off of a gel cell, and for the most part at full power at 5 watts. The battery required one recharge. I didn’t get a chance to go portable yet, but it is coming up soon.
One of the more interesting QSOs was a CW contact on 20 meters with another ham using the FT-817 in Alabama. He was using a whole two watts, I was running 5 watts when we started. I ended up dropping the power back to around 2 for the remainder of the QSO. It went really smooth.
So what did I learn? Well first of all, I really had fun. And people like to work QRPers. They seem to compliment you, and also give you a real signal report instead of just a standard 59 or 599. It also seems to me that if you hang around the QRP CW calling freqs, you shouldn’t have a problem in the world making a couple of QSOs. This entire experience affirms the fact that a ton of power on PSK modes will only create splatter for everyone else. SSB has it’s place, but so does the 100 watt solid state amp that I bought to accompany this radio, in case I am out in the field and really need to make a vital QSO.
Anyone else going to give it a try?
