Something about CW outside just really recharges my battery.  Maybe it’s being outside after my first week of going back in to the gulag – err – office.  Maybe it the sunshine after several days of overcast and misty days.  Or maybe it’s the relief of fooling 23 operators into thinking I know Morse code.  Whatever it is, I’m really happy I could get out to a park this morning.

My oldest daughter is visiting today, and I wanted to get in and out of the park early enough to be settled when she arrived but not so early to be noticed by my wife doing nothing to help straighten the house.  So, after two cups of coffee, Pepper and I made the 40-minute drive to US-3005 Eisenhower State Park.

I ran QRP today, with my KX2.  I’ve been separated from it for several months; it having quit tuning on 20 and 30 meters.  I bumbled around a bit trading emails with Doug at Elecraft, then gave up and sent it in.  It took them two week to fix the things I broke while fixing it and then mail it back.  In my eyes, the KX2 is truly a wonderful transceiver and best friend so I was near giddy with excitement setting up on my favorite picnic table in the Day Use Area.

LoadOut

• Elecraft KX2
• Internal Battery
• ABR Industries RG-316 with Ferrites
• PackTenna End Fed Randome
• BamaKey TP-III
• Admin Pouch

Activation:

I started my activation with a little hunting – no mean feat at 5 watts.  I found N3CZ and WI2X right off.  Tired of waiting in line, I found quiet air at 14.059.5, called QRL, spotted, called CQ and got busy.  It was a slow start – five or six rings before N6PF picked up.  But, from there out, things we’re pretty active.  I wrapped the activation with 23 QSOs in 27 minutes (including the hunting).  Plenty of pileups.  No complaints, but it left me with some lingering thoughts.

There’s just a lot of huluh-buh-loo swirling around QRP.  There’s Youtube videos and charts and graphs describing watts in relation to decibels and proclaiming there so little advantage to the top 95 watts of a standard barefoot rig.  Well after spending the last several weeks activating with my diehard FT-891 on 30 or 40 watts, there’s a significant departure between calculated and perceived difference.

I’m just saying, regardless of the charts and graphs, the difference between 5 and 40 watts is noticeable.  At 40 watts, the pace of a Saturday morning activation is almost too much for me.  More answer my calls than I care to beep with and they won’t stop answering until I long press the power button. 

At QRP, things usually progress at a more gentlemanly pace – a pace I enjoy.  In fact, I can sometimes finish a QSO and have a brief moment to reflect on it.  Here’s what I think, if you can’t do it with 40 watts of CW, it’s not possible with that antenna.  I’ll tentatively state that on the right day, 5 watts of CW will do most anything 40 watts will.  But this is only because an S3 is every bit as readable as an S7 if the noise floor is flat.  Noise floor – as in that giant roaring, fiery, ball in the middle of the galaxy.  If there’s S2 of noise, I suspect our S3 QRP signal just gets swept down the drain like bubbles in the bathwater.

In the end, I know my opinions are like you- know-what, and everybody’s got one.  But it’s fun to nerd about it. 

I hope you can get to a park while the weather holds!

TNX ES 73
KA5TXN
DitWit