General Category > Amateur Radio

QRP Contesting

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ThaDood:
Ever give the newer 60M band a try in QRP? Might not give you contest points, unless that is actually allowed, but with everyone here in the USA MAX'ed out to 100W ERP there, being being -10dB, or less, would give you a good chance to be heard. I wouldn't do it at night, this time of year with lightning crashes prevalent, but good regional coverage in daytime. And, afternoons are when I seem to hear and QSO with the most traffic on that band.  I like that band, since I'm on par power-wise, with everyone else there. That, and being channelized, I'm not going to have some douche +/-1kHz away keying on me.

Josh:

--- Quote from: IZS4 on May 24, 2019, 1722 UTC ---That's interesting. I do call CQ with my 100 watt rig, but only occasionally when QRP. I can see your point though. If your the one calling then theres not as much competition in comparison to trying to work a station with multiple ops trying the same. I remember when the 703's came out and were $429.99. I seem to remember a problem with the early generation 703's, but cant quite remember. I wanna say the finals went out in them fairly often. They still hold their value pretty well on the used market when you can come across one.

--- End quote ---

Yep, fragile finals, also suffered by the Yaesu version, the FT817. Do not run these rigs into a non resonant antenna, also do not yell at the radio or look ruefully at it or the finals may pop. Mine lost one of the final pair and I got rid of it after seeing this was a common occurrence. Fantastic on rx, unreliable on tx. I was contemplating replacing the finals with a bipolar pair I have on hand; the finals from a HR2510, very rugged, but I suppose I'd not have enough drive to max them out without serious redesign, something I try to avoid.

Matt285:
I have never tried 60m and currently do not have the capability to do so. That's one of the reasons I like 30 meters. Lower power and most people are running wire antennas, however with the new growth in digital modes there is not near as much CW activity. It seems like now whenever I go onto a DX cluster and set it to show the lower portion of the HF bands the majority of the postings are FT8. I'm not really a fan, but to each their own and it does seem to be quite effective with low power and the current band conditions being what they are.

Matt285:
I had a lot of fun with my HR2510 back in the 90's. Great radio for what it was.

Josh:

--- Quote from: IZS4 on May 24, 2019, 1936 UTC ---I had a lot of fun with my HR2510 back in the 90's. Great radio for what it was.

--- End quote ---

I liked mine too! That was back in the day when I'd spend as much or more for shit cb rigs and texas star amps like a fool when I could've had a truly worthy rig like a 751a or 757 or any other used HAM rig instead of the thousands wasted on cb crap. No evil intended towards cbers, just that most modern cb rigs output is so dirty they shouldn't be on the air.

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