so ive been licensed for about 3 years now and mostly just did stuff with my Icom 7300 from the shack, nothing wrong with it but i kept reading about QRP and figured id give it a shot. picked up one of those QCX mini kits from QRP Labs and spent a weekend putting it together. im not the best at soldering but i took my time and it actually worked first try which was honestly shocking.

first contact was about 340 miles on 40m with 5 watts and the other guy gave me a 579, like i was actually surprised it worked that well. now im kinda obsessed. been thinking about taking it out portable with a random wire antenna and a 4:1 unun just to see what happens. anyone doing a lot of parks on the air type stuff with these little kits or similar rigs? curious what antenna setups people are using when they go out because i dont really want to lug around a big antenna tuner

the QCX mini is such a solid little rig, congrats on getting it going. for portable stuff i mostly use an end fed half wave with a tiny 49:1 unun wound on an FT82-43 core, the whole thing weighs almost nothing and i can hang it from a tree branch or a telescoping fishing pole. works great on 40m without a tuner at all as long as you cut it close to resonance for the band you want. i tried bringing a full tuner out to the field once and honestly the hassle wasnt worth it for QRP, id rather just have a dedicated antenna per band or use a small Z-match if i need flexibility.

POTA is really fun with these rigs btw, theres something deeply satisfying about working 10 contacts with 5 watts from a picnic table. the hunters are usually pretty patient too if you explain youre running QRP.

yeah i just started doing portable stuff with a similar setup, i have a mountain topper radio not a kit but same idea. one thing i noticed is that conditions matter SO much more at QRP levels than they ever did running 100 watts from home. like a mediocre band day at home is basically a dead band when youre at 5 watts. i had a trip planned to a summit last month and the bands were just garbage, got like 2 contacts in 2 hours which was frustrating but honestly kinda taught me a lot about actually reading propagation before i go out. anyway what frequency you been hanging out on? i might listen for you sometime