Sunday, October 21, 2012

A weekend of QRPp op's

This weekend it was my intention to get some DXCC's into the books and the weekend is not over yet and there is still time....but.....the bands were alive with the Worked all Germany contest. On Saturday morning and mid morning 10m was alive with DL calls. I have been reading over the past few weeks how great 10m  WSPRing has been. I wanted to give QRPp operations a shot and 10m seemed wide open to Europe. Below are the result from my Saturday and Sunday morning QRPp contacts.

Saturday mornings contacts

1. HA3FTA ( I know it's Hungary not Germany) 200mWs          22,776 miles per watt.
2. DK9PY                                                          100mWs           39,565 mpw.
3. DJ1MM                                                          500mWs            8,405 mpw.
It was now time to start dropping the power lower.
4. DL2DX                                                              50mWs         82,857  mpw
Below was the best distance of the day for Saturday the conditions started to change on 10m and contacts were getting harder and harder to make. Besides it was time to get some things done around the house. 
5. DL1NUX                                                           40mws        101,702   mpw.



Once again on Sunday I found 10m  to be very busy and the best band for my QRPp contacts. The Worked all Germany contest was still in full swing, so I jumped in to see how things worked out. 

Sunday mornings contacts

1. RK3ER                                                       100mWs                   51,830 mpw.
2. DL4CF                                                          30mWs                135,039 mpw. 
The next contact was the best of the weekend for mpw and also it now is my new record I have to try and beat.
3. DL0FOR                                                         30mWs               138,067 mpw

I did give 20mWs a shot but it just did not seem to make the trip this weekend. Once the power was raised to 30mWs the station seemed to hear me and came back to me. I had only a few contacts that required repeats most sent and received signal reports were accomplished first time. The miles per watt calculations were done at the QRP ARCI web site. They have a calculator you can use. I did have some troubles with contest station calls at the ARCI website. Their calls would come back as a no shows. For these calls I found out their grid square at this grid square locator site From there I went to N9SSA's site, a miles per watt site based on grid square locators and punched in the info and received my miles per watt calculation. It's kinda like long math when it comes to miles per watt calculations....but it works!!

8 comments:

Dick said...

Well done Mike. I tried to work a couple stations operating the NY QSO party, but no go. Late night here and just finished a QSO with a chap in PA. Good sigs both ways.

Jspiker said...

Hello Mike,

Those are amazing MPW's there!! Although I don't use any of the digital modes, they're mind boggling. Congrats !!

VE9KK said...

Good morning Dick, yes the conditions at times seem to be very good. I did find they can change very fast. Oh well that is part of the game that makes things exciting.

VE9KK said...

Good morning John, this was done all with CW no digi modes at this end.

Jspiker said...

WOW....I was confused about that! And I thought I was doing well with 3 watts hihi. I worked the Hungarian station -- HA3FTA -- on 30 meters. You make some fantastic contacts there !! Congratulations !!!!!!!!! Your attic antenna is spectacular!!

Paul Stam PAØK said...

Hi Mike, an amazing result with QRPp. Well done. 73 Paul

VE9KK said...

Yes CW can be a really nice mode and you can get some surprising results....John you should try dropping the power down to below a watt just to see what happens...you may be pleased to see how far your signal gets.

VE9KK said...

Thanks very much Paul, I am always pleased to see how far I can get with my low power. I was trying things at 20mW's but I was not getting anywhere so that power is my next challenge.