so i finally pulled the trigger on a QCX mini kit after eyeing it for probably two years and i have to say the whole experience was kind of humbling in a good way. i've been licensed for about four years now but mostly just used commercial HF rigs so actually sitting down and soldering every component on that little board made me realize how little i actually understood about what was happening inside the black box

the build took me a couple evenings, nothing too crazy, and i only had to troubleshoot one cold solder joint on the LPF section before it started working properly. got it aligned on 40m and made my first contact into ohio from here in illinois running maybe 3 watts and i wont lie i was pretty giddy about that. the other station gave me a 559 which honestly felt better than any 59 i've gotten running 100 watts

i'm curious what other people have found for antennas when they're doing portable QRP stuff. i've been reading about end fed half waves and also random wires with a tuner but not sure what the tradeoff is for something you'd throw in a pack and hike out with. does the antenna matter even more at low power or is that just something people say

congrats on the first QRP contact, that ohio from illinois on 3w is solid especially if conditions werent great. and yeah the antenna absolutely matters more at QRP, thats not just something people say — when you're already giving up 15dB compared to a kilowatt station the last thing you want is another 3dB disappearing into a compromised antenna or lossy feedline

for portable stuff i've been using an EFHW for a few years now and it's hard to beat for simplicity. you can wind a 49:1 transformer on a toroid, solder it into an altoids tin basically, and the whole thing with the wire rolled up weighs almost nothing. the tradeoff versus a random wire and tuner is that the EFHW is cut for specific bands so you lose some flexibility, but for a day hike where you know you're going to work 40m it's kind of a no-brainer. random wire plus a Z-match or similar is more flexible but that's another thing to carry and another thing to fiddle with when you just want to set up and operate

also the QCX mini is a great little rig. i built the 20m version and the receiver is surprisingly good for what it is

oh man the feeling of making a contact at QRP power is something else isnt it. i remember my first one and i kept thinking the other guy was going to say QRZ or ask me to repeat but nope just a clean exchange. kind of changes how you think about RF in general

i cant really help much on the antenna question since im still figuring that out myself — i have a buddistick i've been experimenting with for portable but im not totally convinced its the best choice for low power, feels like it has a lot of loss. might just go back to a simple dipole hung from a tree or something