Yesterday we had the 1st of 4 legs of our local QRP contests. Earlier on I had made a commitment to concentrate more on CW this year in a bid to boost and support local CW.
I had plans to operate a small field station from the local park were foiled due to the inclement weather. I thus decided to operate from home and this turned out to be a good idea. We had several thunder storms move through and I would have had no choice, but to cut my operation short, had I operated as planned.
Conditions on the 40 metre band were not very good. Lots of static (QRN) and most distant stations were not workable due to high path losses. Toward the end of the event a few distant stations were heard and worked.
All said and done, I managed to make 29 QSOs of which 13 were on CW. I was very pleased to see the support for CW; this bodes well for the future.
I had a ZS1 station, I thought it was ZS1AAZ, but after much deliberation I realized it must have been my good friend Adrian ZS1TTZ. With QRN and poor conditions prevailing we did not have a QSO. Maybe next time….
Maybe QRP is for the birds, but I can say without hesitation that there is a certain thrill working distant stations with a home built radio and at power levels hardly enough to illuminate the bulb of a small penlight flash light. Combine this with the outdoors and field antennas, then we have magic?
73, Pierre ZS6A
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