and you think you have it bad ??

hi , those of you bemoaning your lot in the uk and elsewhere  with 4 w  restricions  , might take a look at this  Japanese CB (sakura.ne.jp)  - now i have seen the level of entusiasum  these guys show with just 500 mw - and fixed antennas - they get out there in droves - and have some fun  - masses of them - many using just a camera tripod to support their radio  turn out  - and as you will see if you read the link - get some pretty impressive results 

so next time you go out portable - why not leave the big rig at home and see what you can do with say the low power setting on your radio  - i do qrp on ham - max 5 w - worked 6000 miles into south africa  - ok  not on 27 granted - but it CAN  be done !! - back in the sun spot max of the 80's era - several VERY  long distance contacts where reported on fm and AM  - the states where romping in back then  - and it was nothing to work scotland from devon and cornwall on 4 w fm  

the secret of course is antennas  !! - but you will be amazed what CAN  be done with a simple wire or even dipole  - or EVEN  as we HAVE  done a 60 m of wire vertical !! - but you also need a good kite  for this  and a decent MANUAL  atu   ............ but by god it works a treat - 2 person job of course - one to pilot the kite and one to operate  -  so why not look at alternatives to the usual mag mount on a car jobbie ??? 

QRP DX ?? - great fun - IF  you put the effort in  !!  - and on the days that nothing goes right - i just think of the guys in japan ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, 

I'm with you!

Re the Japanese 500 mw CB, I have their 8 AM channels programmed into my rig. The chances of hearing any of them ever are below slim, but you never know something might come through one day. I have put the odd call out on their calling channel too, again the chances of me being heard are definitely not high, but amuses me to imagine one of them out there picking up a flicker of signal coming from the UK on one of their channels

Agreed! I just counted my countries worked list and it’s 24 countries and 13 US states/Canadian provinces worked with 500 milliwatts of SSB and a wire loop antenna in the loft.

Add another 33 countries and 13 states/provinces for “high power” 5 watts….

G0RQQ wrote:

I just counted my countries worked list and it’s 24 countries and 13 US states/Canadian provinces worked with 500 milliwatts of SSB and a wire loop antenna in the loft.

Well done Keith! That's awesome for such very little power.

Do you mind me asking, do you have a transmitter that can put out less than 1w or do you use an attenuator, and if you do use an attenuator is it bought or homemade? I ask because I would like to have a play with varying very low powers, but the lowest output power on SSB my G90 does is 1w, and the cheap ready made step attenuators I have seen for sale have a max input power of 1/4w.

I have a Yaesu FT-817ND which has selectable power settings of 5.0/2.5/1.0/0.5 watts. I checked the 0.5 watt setting with a professional Bird RF power meter and it was exactly a half watt! The other levels were a little low but I tend to use only the 5 watt and 500 milliwatts levels anyway.

Just FYI, I have what was the second 7-band 1000 Miles Per Watt award issued by the QRPARCI club, and which was also the first for all-SSB, all 500 milliwatts. The bands are 40/20/17/15/12/10/6 metres, and all with that same indoor wire loop.

Ahh, that classic QRP rig I see so many people using on utube vids. I can't really justify the costs for another transceiver at the moment, so will need to look at attenuators to drop the tx lower. A simple one stage attenuator to half my lowest power setting looks quite simple enough even for me to put together.

Congrats on the award. I would feel vey proud if I managed to achieve that, so I am sure you must be.