Saturday, March 19, 2011

1/2 watt can get you 4154 miles

During the ARRL DX CW contest last month I was pounding away with my 5 watts and I had an idea "why not drop the power down to 3 watts. I was surprised how well it was working for me I then leaped to 1 watt and was not sure what was going to happen. I was impressed, I was making lots of DX contacts.
Here is a sample of some of the contacts with 1 watt
SO2O          Poland          4344 miles
DL6FBL      Germany       3833 miles
PJ2T           Caribbean     2261 miles

After making these contacts and with only having from time to time to repeat my exchange I then dropped the power to 1/2 watt!!! and to my amazement here are some of the contacts I was able to make.
 Here is a sample of some of the contacts with 1/2 watt 
 EI5DI          Ireland                              3249 miles
VQ5D          Turks and Caicos            1569 miles
TM6M          France                             3507 miles
G5W            England                           3594 miles
V48M          St Kitts                               2071 miles
OH8A          Finland                              3955 miles
DL0MM       Germany                           4154 miles

For some time now I had wanted to somehow get an outside antenna of some type as I thought I was just "stuck" with indoor attic antennas. But with these contacts with such little power my antenna envy has been put to rest.  Also it's time to put some paper on the wall as well, today I sent off my application for 1,000 mile per watt award. The contact I used was DL0MM as it was 4154 miles with but with only 1/2 a watt.
OH8A shack

PJ2T antenna setup

11 comments:

Bert, PA1B said...

Hello Mike,

Great results with QRPp. Your indoor antennas are working fine. It is great fun to reduce below the "psychological treshold" of 1 W and breach the 1000 Miles per Watt boundary so often, when meeting DX stations.

Did you already calculate the "Miles per Watt" for each QSO?
Good luck with 1000 Miles per Watt.

73, Bert PA1B

Paul Stam PAØK said...

Hello Mike, a very impressive list, well done. 73 Paul

VE9KK said...

Hello Bert, yes I did calculate the watts per mile I found the tool at ARCI website. It was cool to see how the 1/2 per mile worked out as well.

VE9KK said...

Good afternoon Paul, thanks very much and as for impressive not to sure about that it was during the ARRL DX CW contest so there sure were lots of listening ears out there.

Tjeerd, PA3GNZ said...

Hello Mike,

Well done with your 1/2 watts.

73

Traveller said...

Congrats on the 1K/W!

A K3 is on my list, but I have a few things I have to do first.

VE9KK said...

Good morning Clark, when you do get the K3 I'm sure you will find the radio to be well worth the money spent on it.

Jspiker said...

Hello Mike,

Very impressive....especially from your location and your antenna restrictions!

VE9KK said...

Good morning J, I too was to say the least very surprised how the antennas preformed.

G4NKX said...

Hi MIke:
Impressive - Must get my Ft817 back on, it always seems to get good results.

73 Peter

VE9KK said...

Hello Peter, I have seen many of the FT817's on the air and have considered one for my portable operation...but that is a gift for sometime in the future.