QRP = The Good Old Days!
Well, it seems quite awhile since I’ve last posted anything to the blog. Guess there’s been a lot happening. Especially with the DTV transition. I should probably talk about that sometime down the road. Guess I will. But right now, it’s nice NOT to think about it!
Today, I just want to pass along what was to me, an amazing QSO on a minimal power of two watts from my Yaesu FT-817ND.
I had been sorting through a few radio things and pulled my go-bag out to just dig through it briefly. For some reason, I pulled the 817 out and attached it to the stealth inverted vee wire antenna at home. It peaks at a height of maybe fifteen feet with the ends at around six feet. I tell you this just to pass along the word that it’s NOT much of a DX antenna!
At any rate, I was tuning around forty meters and decided I didn’t want to compete with what I heard with my two little watts and internal battery power. So I dialed it up to twenty meter CW and tuned up. I heard a “CQ USA” coming from UA4HBW in Samara, European Russia.
“Hey, might be fun to try Russia with two watts!”, I thought to myself.
I called him only to hear him already working someone else stateside.
When that conversation ended and he sent QRZ, I threw my booming pair of watts at him again.
And he answered!
Well, he SORT of answered.
Copying my call was NOT an easy feat at a distance of 6,300 miles! W8A? was his first response. Then W8AA.
Basically, It took three exchanges to get the call sign right and another two for us to get the RST accurate.
But we did it!
Well maybe more accurately, VICTOR did it! As we all know, the real operator in a QRP QSO is the one copying the QRP station. But Victor hung in there and sent me an email later that night confirming the QSO.
Wow. 2130 local time on twenty meters! 6,300 miles on two watts. I have to say, in many, many ways, this QSO was the most exciting I’ve had since those very early days back in the 60s when hearing ANYONE call back my call of WN8ZNO through the Knight Kit R55A receiver made me shake! For an old guy, it was much the same.
Yeah, at least for me, QRP has pretty much brought back “the good old days” of my radio hobby!
Today, I just want to pass along what was to me, an amazing QSO on a minimal power of two watts from my Yaesu FT-817ND.
I had been sorting through a few radio things and pulled my go-bag out to just dig through it briefly. For some reason, I pulled the 817 out and attached it to the stealth inverted vee wire antenna at home. It peaks at a height of maybe fifteen feet with the ends at around six feet. I tell you this just to pass along the word that it’s NOT much of a DX antenna!
At any rate, I was tuning around forty meters and decided I didn’t want to compete with what I heard with my two little watts and internal battery power. So I dialed it up to twenty meter CW and tuned up. I heard a “CQ USA” coming from UA4HBW in Samara, European Russia.
“Hey, might be fun to try Russia with two watts!”, I thought to myself.
I called him only to hear him already working someone else stateside.
When that conversation ended and he sent QRZ, I threw my booming pair of watts at him again.
And he answered!
Well, he SORT of answered.
Copying my call was NOT an easy feat at a distance of 6,300 miles! W8A? was his first response. Then W8AA.
Basically, It took three exchanges to get the call sign right and another two for us to get the RST accurate.
But we did it!
Well maybe more accurately, VICTOR did it! As we all know, the real operator in a QRP QSO is the one copying the QRP station. But Victor hung in there and sent me an email later that night confirming the QSO.
Wow. 2130 local time on twenty meters! 6,300 miles on two watts. I have to say, in many, many ways, this QSO was the most exciting I’ve had since those very early days back in the 60s when hearing ANYONE call back my call of WN8ZNO through the Knight Kit R55A receiver made me shake! For an old guy, it was much the same.
Yeah, at least for me, QRP has pretty much brought back “the good old days” of my radio hobby!
