Well, the last few days have been very interesting, to say the least. Not making any great contacts, but have made some. The radio I am using right at the moment is a Kenwood TS-130, with a bad RF board, so the most i can squeeze out is 5-7W max most of the time. Every once in a while the power will go back up to 100W, but that is rare. So, I have had the QRP forced upon me, and am dealing with it. The best I have done so far is Spain and Down into the Caribbean, so it hasn’t been a complete loss. It is also showing me new ways of operating, that I hadn’t done before. You really have to change the way you DX when you are only running 5W out. I usually watch for a station calling CQ now, and will pounce on them. Sometimes even that wont work, and they will call continuously, never knowing that my weak little signal is coming back to them at all. If nothing else it makes things very interesting. Another problem with calling CQ on a busy band, is that since not a lot of stations can see you, they tend to just start calling CW over the top of you. Very frustrating indeed. I have found that it is better to just wait and view the PSK browser, and watch for stations calling CQ, and try to come back to them. that is where most of my contacts have come from.
Well, the last few days have been very interesting, to say the least. Not making any great contacts, but have made some. The radio I am using right at the moment is a Kenwood TS-130, with a bad RF board, so the most i can squeeze out is 5-7W max most of the time. Every once in a while the power will go back up to 100W, but that is rare. So, I have had the QRP forced upon me, and am dealing with it. The best I have done so far is Spain and Down into the Caribbean, so it hasn’t been a complete loss. It is also showing me new ways of operating, that I hadn’t done before. You really have to change the way you DX when you are only running 5W out. I usually watch for a station calling CQ now, and will pounce on them. Sometimes even that wont work, and they will call continuously, never knowing that my weak little signal is coming back to them at all. If nothing else it makes things very interesting. Another problem with calling CQ on a busy band, is that since not a lot of stations can see you, they tend to just start calling CW over the top of you. Very frustrating indeed. I have found that it is better to just wait and view the PSK browser, and watch for stations calling CQ, and try to come back to them. that is where most of my contacts have come from.