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Author Topic: Your proudest moment as a QRP operator....  (Read 1191 times)

WD0EGC

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Your proudest moment as a QRP operator....
« on: October 21, 2020, 06:46:05 PM »

What is your proudest moment, as a QRP operator?  Tell your story in this thread!!

As for me, I was a grad student at Colorado State in the late 70's.  I had a General license, and a Galaxy V transceiver, but I was living in married student housing, and no way would an antenna for such a QRO unit would be allowed.  So, I scraped up $138, and got a HW-8 and power supply.  My "antenna" was a #28 wire, painted flat-black, with a fish hook on the end, running from my 2nd-story apartment to the sill of out building...essentially invisible.  The transmatch was a home-made L-network, made out of a peanut butter jar used as a coil form and a 365 pF tuning capacitor from an old AM radio.

Using the Hot Water Eight, and that antenna, I worked 40 states, mostly on 40 meters.  But one QSO stood out.  It was a QSO between me, in Fort Collins, CO, and a ham in Ohio.  And, by now, you're thinking...not so remarkable.  But, here is what made it remarkable....my antenna had blown down in a blizzard, and was laying on the ground, covered by 18 inches of snow!! 

So, what is your proudest moment as a QRP operator?  Please share!!
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K5FH

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Re: Your proudest moment as a QRP operator....
« Reply #1 on: October 21, 2020, 08:23:11 PM »

May 31, 1980:

I was playing around on 6M with my Icom IC-502 (which I still have and occasionally use) and thought I heard something coming through on the rig's extendable whip antenna.  It was very faint so I hooked it up to my 100' centerfed dipole through a homebrew antenna tuner and the band came alive - an opening like I hadn't heard in quite a while.  I worked several stateside stations with my 3W PEP signal in the space of an hour until the band closed down.

At 0215 UTC I worked Bill Tynan, W3XO, in Silver Spring, MD.  OTs will remember Bill as longtime Contributing Editor of QST's "World Above 50 MHz" column and for his work with AMSAT.  Bill passed away in 2018.

During that same opening I also worked W3TFA in Takoma Park, MD (I worked a lot of East Coast stations that evening).  What made this CW QSO memorable was that he was using a Heathkit HW-29A (the "Sixer") modified to transmit CW, a Nems-Clarke G-110E receiver and a 3-el Yagi.  So we were pretty evenly matched and that made the contact all that much more memorable.

Ah, sunspots...those were the days...
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KL7CW

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Re: Your proudest moment as a QRP operator....
« Reply #2 on: October 21, 2020, 10:24:24 PM »

For 66 years, much of my ham operating has been QRP or even QRPP,  mostly on 40 through 15 meters.  It is common knowledge that QRP QSO's on these bands of up to perhaps 2000 miles are common, and occasionally even 5000 miles happens.  I never tried 160 meter QRP until a few years ago, since even 2000 mile QSO's were often difficult or even impossible with 100 Watts.  One night when conditions were excellent, just on a lark, I called a station with 5 watts.  Worked several that night, and more that year.  I think all were between 1500 and 4000 miles.  My antenna was just average, I live 40 miles from the ocean, and am mostly surrounded with hills up to 13 degrees above my horizon.  Conditions were exceptionally good for these QSO's and many were after midnight and took some work.  Logically it seems like it would be impossible, but to me it seemed more remarkable than many of my QRPP QSO's with makeshift antennas on backpacking and canoe trips.   Rick  KL7CW Palmer, Alaska
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N8NK

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Re: Your proudest moment as a QRP operator....
« Reply #3 on: October 22, 2020, 12:02:22 AM »

Mine was back in the early 90s on 15m. I was using a ground plane antenna on my chimney, only about 18' above ground. I worked a fellow QRPer in southern Argentina. We met at the 5w level, and started cranking down our power. I had my Heathkit SB-1400 final PA section connected to an adjustable power supply, and at 1.2v I was outputting 900mw. So I ended up disconnecting it completely- and measured about 3 MW bleeding through the PA section. I maintained contact, and got an honest 579! At 1w, his lowest power, he was at times over S9 in Michigan. I posted the whole story on YouTube if anyone wants to listen to it. I call it 'A QRP Story'. My channel name is N8NK QRP. Lots of compromise antenna stuff, QRP stuff, etc. 73 all you QRPers!
Chuck
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K4KRW

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Re: Your proudest moment as a QRP operator....
« Reply #4 on: October 22, 2020, 01:54:06 AM »

In April of 2019 I ran across a station from Mongolia running split on 20 meters.  He was about 6500 miles away from me.  I was operating on my back deck with my KX3.  My antenna was an 80 meter doublet at about 65 feet.  He had a nice signal so I decided to give it a shot.  I worked the pileup for about 20 minutes and ended up getting the contact.  He used LOTW and I even had it confirmed the next day.  Moments like this are what make QRP fun.
Richard
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G8FXC

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Re: Your proudest moment as a QRP operator....
« Reply #5 on: October 22, 2020, 02:09:00 AM »

I would not describe myself as a "QRP operator", but I bought an FT-817 as a toy soon after it launched. My wife and I used to holiday on the coast close to Bordeaux (France) most years and I would take the 817 along - mainly to chat through the local repeaters. My proudest QRP moment was one July afternoon when we had gone for a walk on the beach and I had taken the 817 along with me. It was running barefoot on the internal battery and the stock rubber-duck antenna. We sat on the sand and I tuned around on 6m SSB. I found a rather crackly voice with a British accent, listened carefully and identified it as the St. Kilda DXpedition. They heard my first reply, but could not copy well enough to identify me. They then turned the beam and we had reasonable copy in both directions - managed a proper QSO that lasted several minutes. I even have the QSL card somewhere to prove it. Not bad for less than 5w SSB into a rubber duck antenna! I checked it on the map and calculated that the range was over 900 miles.

Martin (G8FXC)
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WW5F

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Re: Your proudest moment as a QRP operator....
« Reply #6 on: October 22, 2020, 02:55:34 AM »

MFJ 9020, Inverted V up 30 feet.  Tanzania (from Texas) early in the morning on 20 meters a couple years ago.

(It was just like my first CW contact as a Novice back in the 70's--sweaty palms, palpitating heart, shallow breathing, shaky fist, difficulty writing down what he was sending, blurred vision... only this time I felt like I needed a cigarette afterwards.)   :)
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K4PIH

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Re: Your proudest moment as a QRP operator....
« Reply #7 on: October 22, 2020, 05:30:20 AM »

1988, operating as HL9AXT South Korea. Running 8 watts SSB into a speaker wire dipole on my apartment roof. Osan South Korea to Lord Howe Island on 10 meters. Also worked England, Northern Europe, and Asiatic Russia with he same setup from South Korea. I have to admit getting on the air with a Korean callsign usually caused a small pileup. 

Most memorable contact was from Korea to Mexico Beach Florida. Heard 2 OPs on 10m chit chatting and when they broke I jumped in with HL9AXT. There was a moment of silence and one said to the other "did I just hear a Korean station or is somebody joking around?" the other guy said he heard me too. So I called again and had a nice QSO with both of them, was their first Korean contact. All on less than 10 watts, speaker wire dipole and good great band conditions.

Radio was a Trio (Kenwood) TS-180X without the amplifier module. 12 watts max.
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NI0C

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Re: Your proudest moment as a QRP operator....
« Reply #8 on: October 22, 2020, 05:50:20 AM »

Mid-January 2016: Yellowstone National Park

Cross-country skiing the trails past Old Faithful Geyser during mid mornings, followed by operating sessions on 20 meters from a cozy cabin. My KX1 was putting out less than two watts to an indoor wire antenna, but sometimes I had pileups of NPOTA chasers. Details and illustrations should be published in a future issue of the K9YA Telegraph.

72 de Chuck NI0C
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AC7A

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Re: Your proudest moment as a QRP operator....
« Reply #9 on: October 22, 2020, 08:33:20 AM »

Hi,

I have operated CW QRP much of my 50+ year amateur radio career so I've had a number of surprising moments.

One that stands out in particular was back in the early '70s. As a teenager I had been working hard to build a good, clean sounding VFO operated CW QRP transceiver. Direct conversion receivers using a dual-gate MOSFET for the product detector were the rage at the time. After several iterations I managed to design and construct an 80/40 meter VFO controlled CW transceiver that worked surprisingly well. It produced a stable, clean CW note that probably wouldn't get me in trouble with the FCC. It had a 2W dc input power and an output of about 1.5 Watts on both bands.

I was living on the central coast of California back then with my parents and I had the call WA6BQI. The antenna setup was an inverted-V on 40 meters, and kind of a sloping inverted-V on 80 sitting almost sideways because that was the only way it would fit in the yard.

One evening while tuning the transceiver on 80 meters I heard KH6SP calling CQ. I answered and received a call right back. Like most QSOs of the day we exchanged a fair amount of information, and I recall the operator telling me he was operating a club station located at Pearl Harbor. Sometime later I received the KH6SP QSL card confirming our contact and the operator had noted that the card had the word "Amateur" as in Amateur Radio Station misspelled. He attributed it to something about the Navy which I don't recall the inference. I still have the QSL.

Yesterday, I checked QRZ and see that KH6SP is the call assigned to the Recreational Amateur Radio Station for Navy Sub Base Pearl Harbor. So it looks like the club is still around and so am I, fortunately. I still operate QRP much of the time and mostly with a K1 or K2. I still have the original 2-band QRP transceiver I built back in 1971/1972 and plan to refurb it once I retire and have time for such endeavors.

'73, Thomas - AC7A
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N2HUN

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Re: Your proudest moment as a QRP operator....
« Reply #10 on: October 22, 2020, 01:08:59 PM »

Worked a JA station with my Argonaut 509, 1 watt to a trapped vertical that was on the roof of our apartment house, back in the late 70's.
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K3UIM

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Re: Your proudest moment as a QRP operator....
« Reply #11 on: October 22, 2020, 05:43:58 PM »

HUN: You gotta  love those Ten Tec rigs!!  ;D

Charlie
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Charlie. K3UIM
Where you are: I was!
Where I am: You will be!
So be nice to us old fogies!!

N3PM

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Re: Your proudest moment as a QRP operator....
« Reply #12 on: October 22, 2020, 07:30:05 PM »

Working JAs with a watt and a 5BTV on 10M CW, and  KH6s with 2.5 watts and a Miracle Whip, also on 10M CW. Others that stand out are 40M QSOs with 2.5 watts and the Miracle Whip from my rowboat, and with a hula hoop loop on the kitchen table, That set up didn't go over big.
Mike N3PM
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KF4ZGZ

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Re: Your proudest moment as a QRP operator....
« Reply #13 on: October 23, 2020, 03:51:41 AM »

A clean sweep this year in the 13 Colonies Special Event with my uBitx V6.
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Matt

LNXAUTHOR

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Re: Your proudest moment as a QRP operator....
« Reply #14 on: October 23, 2020, 04:22:42 AM »

dunno if i'd deem it 'proud,' but i did have a contact from just outside the National Dead Zone to Ireland using my 817 w/AAs, a BLT, and a wire dipole: 500mW SSB on 17M (started at 2.5W, then turned down)

if ERP counts, it would have to be Largo, Fla. to Kuwait on an FT-857 w/an ATAS-120 on my old F-150

still have the QSLs somewhere...
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