so ive been lurking on this forum for a while and finally pulled the trigger on building a QRP rig from scratch. went with a 40m CW transceiver based on the Pixie design, nothing fancy, just wanted to see if i could actually do it. soldering took me way longer than i expected and i had one of the toroids wound backwards which had me scratching my head for two days before i figured it out.

anyway got it all together last weekend, threw up a random wire out the back window, tuned around 7.030 and just listened for a while. wasnt expecting much honestly, i mean its putting out maybe 500mw. but then i heard a station calling CQ from ohio and just went for it. took a few tries but he came back to me. i was genuinely shocked. running off a 9v battery on my kitchen table and making a contact two states over felt completely different than working DX on my big rig.

the whole low power thing has kind of changed how i think about the hobby. like every db matters, your antenna actually matters, propagation matters — you cant just throw power at a bad situation. anyway wondering if anyone here runs QRP regularly and has tips for getting better at it, especially portable. thinking about taking it camping this summer.

congrats on the first contact, that Pixie moment is something you dont forget. i remember mine, it was years ago and i was convinced the thing was broken because it seemed too simple to actually work.

for portable ops my biggest advice is antenna, antenna, antenna. at QRP levels a bad antenna will kill you but a good one and suddenly 5 watts feels like a lot more. i use an end fed half wave with a small 9:1 unun and a lightweight tuner, fits in a sandwich bag basically. for camping a 40m EFHW strung up between trees with a bit of height gets you surprisingly far especially in the evenings when 40 opens up.

also if you havent tried WSPR yet, throw your signal up on there before a camping trip to see whats actually getting out from your location. gives you a real picture of whats happening with just a few hundred milliwatts. its kind of addictive actually.

yeah the pixie is a great starting point, i built one too. just a heads up if you plan on doing portable stuff the battery drain on those little rigs is so low you can run for hours on a small lipo pack. i use a 2200mah 3 cell pack with a small regulator and its way better than 9v batteries which sag pretty quick.

also look into the KD1JV designs or the uBITX if you want something with a bit more flexibility down the road, still very buildable and way more capable. the rabbit hole goes deep haha