I have seen the flux and sunspot numbers on the rise throughout the week and have been wanting to get on the radio to test the waters! This weekend I have decided to join in on the
QRP DX Marathon than runs for the month of April. Fellow blogger Larry W2LJ is also involved in the Marathon and has posted great results. This is a QRP event were you are allowed make contacts using anywhere from 1 watt to 5 watts. There is a formula at the Marathon site that allows you to figure out your miles per watt. What makes this event a challenge is formula that is used to come up with your miles per watt. It seems to me that not only is your QRP power taken into the mix but the station you are contacting also counts toward your miles per watt outcome. So if you have a QRP to QRP contact then you earn a higher score. I found this out the hard way yesterday when I made contact with SP8FHK from Poland with 1 watt...but he was running 1KW and that really hurt my score!! At this point I am number 23.
Today I am at it again but so far no luck, I have been finding stations such as F7HKA, HB9TN and IK5ZWU all on 24 mhz but no luck in contacting them. I start out calling them at 1 watt and move my way up to 5 watts. I have not been able to hit the 5 watt level as they seem to fade into the noise level before then. The day is still young and opportunity awaits me on the bands.
2 comments:
Hello Mike, cease the opportunity. When I go in to a contest, I work what I can. When the S-meter goes up, I reduce my power. So I follow the changes in the propagation. Good luck in QRPp.
Good afternoon Bert, great to hear from you! In this competition you are only able to operate QRP so my power will only get to the 1 watt level. BUT good new I was able to have a QSO with EA2LU who was operating at 5 watts and me at 1 watt. This has moved me up in the standings.
Mike
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