so i've been on HF for about two years now running 100w with a borrowed icom and last month i finally decided to take the plunge and build one of those QMX kits from QRP Labs. took me about three evenings spread over a week and honestly the hardest part was just the surface mount stuff near the audio section, my eyes arent what they used to be lol.

anyway got it running last weekend and made my first contact with it on 40m into ohio from indiana running about 5 watts. guy gave me a 579 which i was pretty happy with honestly. the whole thing just fits in my shirt pocket which is kind of wild when you think about it.

i guess my question is more for people who run QRP regularly — do you find certain bands or times of day just work better for low power? feels like i need to be more strategic now compared to just cranking the power. also thinking about building a simple end fed for portable use with it, any thoughts on that vs a small dipole?

congrats on the build and the first qrp contact, that feeling never really gets old. 579 on 5 watts into ohio is solid, you picked a good time to get on 40m.

to answer your question yeah band conditions and timing matter way more when youre running qrp, like it magnifies everything. i tend to stick to 40 and 20 mostly, 17m can be really good too when the band cooperates. early morning and late afternoon on 40 is usually where i find the most success for domestic stuff. and if you ever get into digital modes like ft8 the qrp thing almost becomes a non-issue, ive worked europe on 2.5 watts plenty of times.

for the antenna honestly for portable use a simple linked dipole is hard to beat, you can roll it up in a bag and its just more predictable than an EFHW in my experience. that said a lot of people swear by the end fed half wave with a 49:1 unun and they work fine too, just more fussy about the feedpoint height sometimes. try both if you can, wire is cheap.

end fed is what i use for all my portable stuff. built mine from some speaker wire and a little matchbox i wound myself, total cost was maybe 8 bucks. throws it up in a tree and its usually good enough. the qmx is a great kit btw, i have the older qcx mini and its basically the same idea, mine has survived being dropped twice and still works fine which says something about the build quality.