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Contesting at QRPp levels!
15 November 2020 | by 
Yesterday I dabbled in the OK/OM DX CW contest for about an hour and a half. This time for some fun and interest I entered QRP level but lowered my power to just one watt. Propagation has been surprisingly nice over the past week or so and I wanted to give the new solar flux a test run. My radio is the Icom 7610 and my antenna is a slopped Endfed antenna at about 25 feet. I stayed on 20m as the radio gods seemed to be smiling on me there. I made only 10 contacts as I was not in the contest for scoring just to see how the fishing was with one watt. I was only asked for repeats regarding my exchange twice other than that the 1 watt made it through.
Because I was operating at only 1 watt I also wanted to take the loss of my SWR into account. I checked with my antenna analyzer and the CW portion on 20m my SWR was 2.3:1. According to the power loss at various SWR readings chart at 2.3:1, I was in around 15% so this took my 1 watt down to 850 milliwatts.
Below are the results of my QRPp contest efforts:
Band 20m
QSO 10
Score 300
Contacts and Miles per watt using grid square to grid square for millage
1. OM7M 3720 miles 4376 miles per watt at .850 watts.
2. OM3CGN 3795 miles 4464 miles per watt at .850 watts.
3. OL3Z 3515 miles 4135 miles per watt at .850 watts.
4.OK7K 3503 miles 4121 miles per watt at .850 watts.
5. OK1DOL 3478 miles 4091 miles per watt at .850 watts.
4 Responses to “Contesting at QRPp levels!”
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Mike, congratulations for nice experience operating QRP radio, would be interesting to know the manufacturer of your radio. Now with the beginning of cicle 25 there will be more hams operating QRP rigs.
Regards from Chile, South America
Good evening Hermann, thanks for the comment and the radio is the Icom 7610.
73,
Mike
VE9KK
Mike,
I tried CW for the first time some years ago. It was love at first sight. Cycle 24 propagation was quite good then so, I took chances and started working QRP too often with good reports. Yes, I do use directional beams on 10m, 15m and 40m but that is part of the game, as I must use them to listen to other QRP stations far away. DXing at QRP levels is an amazing achieviment. I do recommend it. Keep up the good work.
73,
Luciano PT9KK (Have you already figured out our callsigns are pretty much alike?)
Luk thanks very much for stopping by and leaving a comment, yes QRP is loads of fun and now that the solar cycle seems to be picking up I will be doing it more often. I find using CW a great way to make contacts and it’s like having another language you can use. It did not click at first but yes our calls are very close! I was over at your QRZ page and you have some very nice pictures there of birds, your antenna and daughter.
Thanks for the comment and hope to work you on CW one day,
73
Mike
VE9KK