so ive been a ham for about three years now and always ran 100w from the shack, figured more power was always better and never really thought about it. but my buddy kept bugging me to try a QRP setup for a hike we did last weekend and i finally caved and threw together a kit with my little ubitx and a random wire up in a tree.

honestly i was not expecting much. i mean 5 watts into a compromised antenna in the middle of nowhere seemed like a recipe for frustration. but i worked 11 stations on 40m over about two hours including a guy in georgia (im in ohio) which felt pretty decent for the effort. the whole kit including the rig, battery, key, and antenna stuff fit in a small dry bag.

anyway the question i have is about efficiency — i notice the ubitx runs pretty warm even at 5w and i'm wondering if thats normal or if there's something i should be looking at. also curious whether people bother with a tuner when doing portable or just cut the wire for the band you want and call it a day. feels like a tuner adds weight and complexity but maybe its worth it for flexibilty across bands. what do you guys do

the warmth on the ubitx is pretty normal honestly, the final transistors run in class AB so there's always gonna be some heat even when you're not transmitting much. if it gets uncomfortably hot to the touch during long periods of transmitting you might wanna check your duty cycle but for casual portable use its probably fine. some people add a small heatsink to the finals which doesnt cost anything if you have junk box parts.

on the tuner question i go back and forth on this. i used to always cut a wire for the target band and that works great if you know exactly what you're doing that day. but now i carry a small z-match tuner i built from a kit, weighs maybe 150 grams and lets me jump to 20m if 40 goes dead which has saved a few activations. the LNR end fedz wires are popular in the SOTA crowd for good reason too, resonant on multiple bands without a tuner so thats another option worth looking at.

11 contacts from a tree antenna at 5 watts sounds pretty great to me, i havent even tried portable yet but this is making me want to. what battery were you running and how long did it last? that's the part that always makes me nervous about going out in the field