I have noticed the same thing... 2W seems to be the lower limit. Though I have done 5200 miles with 1.3W and 830 miles with 100mW. Those are flukes though. With my MTR and a half gone battery my output may be 2.5W and that seems to always go through. I have had good results with my K1 and a Buddistick on 20m, and I know that antenna radiates much less power than the 6W I feed it! I prefer end-fed half-waves, but you need a tree... When I use my K1 at 6W, I do announce myself as QRP sometimes, but not when I use my KX3 at 12W. Most of the time I just give my output power and antenna. Sometimes saying "QRP" does get you an answer faster. People are curious about what you're using..

Gil.

Most has been said already, but I'll add my $0.02... QRP is often confused with portable. There is no logical reason to limit oneself at 5W outside of a contest. I hate contests, so QRP has a different meaning to me. I operate portable... The power limitation in portable operations comes from weight and size. Weight of the batteries mainly. When I say portable, I mean having to carry your gear in a backpack and hike, for miles, not to the camping table ten feet away.. If I could get 100W out of a radio the size of a pack of cigarettes and use it all week on eight AA cells, I would go for that. Of course, that's impossible at this time. Not only that, but it's not needed. I operate my radios at maximum power, and for me it means 12W/KX3, 6W/K1 and 5W/MTR. For CW, you rarely need more than that.

I don't bother with SSB because you need 20-25W and that drains batteries way too fast. I also don't like finding myself screaming in a microphone.. I know it doesn't help much, but that's easy to forget. The only reason I have a KX3 is to allow people with me to call in an emergency if I am the victim. That and short wave listening.

Ultimately, your radiating power will depend on your antenna system, so 5W out of your transmitter is an arbitrary number. It's a "legal" limit for contests, and nothing else. It's more interesting to go for miles-per-Watt..

I don't have a shack, but if I did and owned a 100W radio, it would make no sense to me to turn it down to 5W. I would set it to 25W and forget about the setting, unless conditions were really bad, and then, I'd probably turn the radio off and go do something more entertaining. I would also not carry that same radio out in the woods and be left with a flat battery that same day after draining it at 1.5A/Hr listening, not to mention transmit current. My back wouldn't like it much either. When I hear people say that will do portable ops with an IC-7200, I roll my eyes.. Sure, if you can use your truck battery for power.. Not "portable," which definition reads: "Carried or moved with ease." This is portable: http://keskydee.com/images/HFCW.jpg.

The question is, do you want to be QRP or portable, or both? If you don't do contests, forget about the definition...

Gil.

Hello Jordan,

You might want to experiment with your antenna and maybe other ones. Try a bit longer with 12W. You might find that you don't need an amp at all after all....

Gil.

It depends on the band... On 40m and above, you won't reliably go beyond what 2m does... That said, HF can be "pretty" reliable. For instance, using NVIS on 40m can work for a few hundred miles, but you are still relying on the ionosphere straight above you. It will work most of the time. You can also pretty reliably count on one skip, maybe 800 to 1400 miles... On 80 and 160m, ground propagation can give you reliability to maybe 200 miles, I am not sure, as I have not used them yet. Bottom line is, beyond line-of-sight, there are no certainties. Dave is right, propagation dictates whether you will go through or not. The more experience you gain, the more "lucky" you are going to get...

Gil.

Hello Al and all,

Frustration depends on expectations. If I expected to make contact all the time, I might be frustrated too.. Since I don't, I am perfectly happy with my results, which are actually quite good, in my opinion. I like QSOs of about 20mins to half an hour, not the RST-73 type. One or two conversations a day is all I expect.

That said, I get an answer 90% of the time when responding to a CQ. I have had no problem reaching Eastern Europe using from 1.3 to 5W. QRP requires a bit of thinking about propagation, band choice and timing. It's not like using 250W. You can spend a lot of time looking if you look at the wrong time on the wrong band. I am sure you know that. You say you tried QRP, how long did you try? How many times? I just came back from a week-long camping trip and made contact with a friend 830 miles away twice a day, every day, once in the morning and once in the evening, with a radio the size of a pack of cigarettes and an output of 4W. Not once did we not make contact. I even had a couple QSOs with Hams in France and Italy, and of course, a bunch of others in the U.S.

Anyone wanting to fill their logbook with 30 seconds-long QSOs won't like QRP. Contesters won't like QRP, though there are QRP contests... Anyone with enough patience to experiment and find the best combination of rig and antenna system will succeed, and quite well. A station that works well using 250 or 100W might not be efficient. When you reduce power, that's when you'll notice. When you start with QRP, you won't make contact until you get the antenna system right. Once you do, you will get repeatable results. If you have to use a tuner, you are already setting yourself up for failure.

I am not boasting here, but simply saying that QRP works for me, and it works for anyone willing to try hard enough. It's not "plug & play" like buying an off-the shelf 100W rig, and expensive antenna, checking your SWR and go.. But that's what's so interesting about it. You can do what a $5K station does with $200 worth of gear, most of the time, and that is awesome to me. My most powerful radio outputs 12W, and I'll never need more than that. My level of frustration: ZERO.

To anyone who has "tried" QRP and got frustrated, I urge you to try again and spend more time experimenting. Even if in the end you decide it's not for you, if you were successful, you will have learned enough to make your next QRO operations even better. You might even save a few thousands by selling your big amp, not to mention lower your electricity bill!

Gil.

Well, yes and no.. I started QRP and had no problem at all. It might be true for SSB, but not CW. CW goes through most of the time.

Gil.

For sending, just read a book and send what you read.. You can check with Fldigi if it decodes your code. Good way to get your timing right..

Gil.

As the others have said, it depends on the band and time of day. That said, when the ionosphere doesn't cooperate, there is nothing you can do. With a band like 20m, you will soon notice a minimum radius under which you won't make contact (except for maybe 15 miles around you). A few times a week I talk (CW) with a friend about 830 miles away. It works almost every time with just a few Watts. On 40m for example, I rarely make contact under 800 miles, but routinely around 1300 and 5000 miles away.. It also all depends on the radiation pattern of your antenna. With a bit of experimentation with different bands and times, you should be able to establish a regular sked with someone almost every time when the chosen band is open. You will also develop a map of the areas you can reach easily and those you can't. Note that adding power in most cases doesn't make that much of a difference, well. for CW anyway... SSB does benefit from a little more juice.

Gil.

Hello Philip,

At 5wpm you will be tempted and most likely use a look-up table in your head, which will slow you down a great deal later. I highly suggest learning at least at 12wpm with 20wpm characters. That will give you a much better base to build upon. If it's too fast for you, reduce the number of letters. Also see on lcwo.net: "Morse Machine." And try to go as fast as you can.

I made the same mistake you are making now, and after ten months, I am only at 15wpm. Only now am I able to transcribe directly from sound for most letters. 5wpm makes things easy now, but you will pay for it later...

Gil.

Oops, sorry, try: http://keskydee.com/images/HFCW.jpg

Gil.

Very interesting! I bet with 12W it would be even more..

Gil.

This is very light and small. Works for a week of casual use with eight AA cells. Has global range, 20/40m full coverage. Can be recharged by the sun more than a thousand times (once a week = about 20Yrs). Fits in one cargo pants pocket (but for the small solar panel). You won't want to throw it away after carrying it a few miles...

http://radiopreppers.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=407.0;attach=219;image

Gil.

I'm a new Ham. You never hear me on a repeater.. I don't know what kind of employer does pay for Ham licenses.. Never heard of that. I think the reason is simpler. Conversations on repeaters are often downright boring. Most people probably get their Technician license just in case.. Maybe they listen a bit, then decide they have better things to do for entertainment. I certainly do. Those who get a General or Extra license get on HF, so why would they hang out on VHF? I operate CW only and like building kits. Using a 2m HT to sign-in a net is not interesting or useful to me. Learning to pass messages in Morse code while camping has more real life applications for me..


Right. What I am getting at is that emergency communications useful to the community and Ham operators themselves (and their families and friends) are more likely to be outside of official channels. This simply because "officials" are already equipped and prepared. Therefore training should emphasize traffic forwarding and information exchange between Hams to benefit their families, friends and neighborhoods.

In a dire emergency, who is going to leave their family to be "deployed" by an EMCOMM group while their wife and kids stay at home to fend off the looters and battle whatever conditions created the emergency? Not to mention being paid nothing. Right... No patched white shirt and orange vest is worth that loss.

Establish a communications strategy to help yourself and your loved ones first. The rest of the world can afford losing your meager contribution.

Gil.

Yes, it works great. I have the regular 40/20/10. The reason to use the BetterQRP tuner was because of the SWR indicator. My Weber MTR doesn't measure SWR like the LNR Mantiz does. So, I wanted to be sure that my SWR was ok before transmitting. With a properly stretched antenna, the LNR match box would be just fine, but I wasn't sure I would be able to deploy it properly, so the SWR indicator was an extra safety..

Gil.

Emergency communications is also not just about helping government agencies. It's about getting information on the situation and potentially helping others outside of the official channels. I can't go to a police officer and have him relay a message to my relatives telling them that tornado that just went through did not kill me. He has other things to do.. Do I trust the media to update me on a developing situation coming my way? I don't think so... My friends know I can get messages out no matter what, that's emergency radio.

A note about CW for emergencies: My whole HF station fits in one cargo pant pocket. That includes the radio, antenna, key, battery, earphones, notepad and pen. No digital or voice radio can do that, period. My 2m HT is actually heavier! Most emergencies, you'll be operating in a cozy temperature controlled environment.. Then you can have all your toys around and a big generator to power it all. The day you have to carry the stuff on foot, you'll be happy to have a small CW rig..

In some parts of the world, there are no local agencies to help or communicate with... Actually, even in the U.S. some remote areas are pretty isolated. The tools and methods then are different.

IMHO, the worst the emergency, the more Ham radio can help... In small events, it could even be a hindrance, or at least ineffective. As the seriousness of a situation increases, Ham radio becomes more useful, not only to officials, but more importantly, directly to the community. The main problem I see in emergency communications with Ham radio is that most of that fancy equipment will probably stop working before it would be direly needed, when the generators run out of gas or the batteries run out, or God forbid, if either need to relocated via human power. I am not sure enough emphasis is placed on portability and field operations. Field day? Yeah, nice effort, but, really..? A large number of Ham operators are not even in good enough shape to do little more than sit..

The last storm we had around here, the local 2m repeater was bustling with activity and regular weather reports, I mean, every five minutes! It made me chuckle.. I applaud the guys who spot tornadoes, that is a great service to the community (here a good example of when Ham radio is very useful), but unless there is a tornado, or a storm even worth mentioning, there is no need to get into emergency mode! Not to mention the local nets asking anyone if they have emergency traffic... As if they don't own a phone. And by the way, if I have an emergency, I'm not going to wait for the evening net to call it in on 2m!

Official relief agencies are now mostly well equipped. Except for rural areas, they don't need Ham radio for manageable situations. The Ham radio motto is "When Everything Else Fails." but it seems to me that's not what people are preparing for...

Gil.