Sunday, November 15, 2020

Contesting at QRPp levels!


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. 

6. OK5Z         3601 miles 4236 miles per watt at .850 watts. 

7. OM7JG       3773 miles 4439 miles per watt at .850 watts. 

8. OM5ZW     3755 miles  4418 miles per watt at .850 watts 

9. OK1RI        3462 miles 4072 miles per watt at .850 watts. 

10. OM2VL    3714 miles 4369 miles per watt at .850 watts. 

12 comments:

PE4BAS, Bas said...

Amazing Mike. What can I say....this is real QRP. 73, Bas

John AE5X said...

It's amazing what QRP can do when solar conditions permit. An equally amazing how well stations can hear when contest points are involved.
73 - John

VE9KK said...

Good evening Bas, yes I wanted to give it a go as the conditions have been improving and it's a nice challenge as well.
73,
Mike
VE9KK

VE9KK said...

Hello John always nice to hear from you, yes the conditions have been great lately and what a way to celebrate it with QRPp contesting. It's very true in a contest the ears of the listening station are perked. I have always found that contest time was the best for QRPp results.
73,
Mike
VE9KK

Paul Stam PAØK said...

Hi Mike, wow, good results qrp on 20 meter. I still hope to work you on 20m cw. 73 Paul

VE9KK said...

Good morning Paul and very nice to hear from you, yes it seems like the bands are starting to pickup. I can remember not to long ago during a contest it was tough for me to make contacts with 100 watts.
Catching you on CW would be great!
73,
Mike
VE9KK

MadDogMcQ said...

ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS!!! I just LOVE to read stuff like this and I find it quite inspirational - as many other will too.

73, Tom, M7MCQ.

Blogmaster said...

Great job Mike !!
73,
BILL VE3FI

VE9KK said...

Good afternoon Tom, thanks for the nice comment and it's a blast doing just seeing how far so little power can get you. In the past I had used a step attenuator to get very low power. At some points it was as low as a cordless phone, and I was still getting across the pond with it.
Have a good week,
73
Mike
VE9KK

VE9KK said...

Bill very nice to hear from you and thanks!
73,
Mike
VE9KK

Dick said...

hello Mike. Congrats for your success in the cw contest at Qrpp level. Keep those cw skills. Too many hams get caught up in digi modes and lose their own. Still QRP cw here but less active these days. 72/73 de Dick F8WBD

VE9KK said...

Good afternoon Dick very nice to hear from you, I have worked way too hard on CW to give it up! I do like the digi modes and I can see how they can be addictive but for me CW is always number one. Have a good week Dick and stay safe.
73,
Mike
VE9KK