so i've been wanting to get into QRP for probably two years now and i finally just pulled the trigger on a QCX Mini kit a few months back. took me like three evenings to build it because i kept getting interrupted and honestly my soldering skills are pretty rusty, had to reflow a few joints that looked cold. but it fired right up on the first try which was kind of shocking honestly.

been running it portable mostly, just tossing it in a bag with a 3ah lipo and a end-fed half wave i built myself and heading out to the park on weekends. 5 watts into that antenna and ive been shocked at what you can work. made a contact into scotland last saturday from ohio on 20m and the guy gave me a 579 which i still cant quite believe. theres something about making a contact with basically nothing that just feels different than doing it from the shack with a big linear.

anyway if anyone is thinking about getting into QRP i'd say just do it. the kit building part is half the fun even if it drives you a little crazy. curious if anyone else here runs QRP portable and what setups have worked well for you, im always looking for ideas on antennas especially.

that scotland contact at 5w is awesome, 20m was probably in good shape but still thats a solid result for a first portable outing. i've been doing POTA with a KX2 for about a year and a half and honestly the QRP thing becomes kind of addictive. you start looking at every contact differently.

for antennas i bounced around a lot before settling on a linked dipole for multiband work. the EFHW you're using is great but if you ever want to try 40m or 17m without a tuner it's worth making one with the links, its a little more fiddly to set up but not bad once you get used to it. also worth experimenting with your feedpoint height, ive found even a foot or two makes a noticeable difference sometimes depending on the terrain.

what logging software are you using for the parks stuff, or are you doing paper log?

i built the same kit last winter, mine did NOT fire up first try lol. spent a weekend chasing a solder bridge i couldnt see without a magnifying glass. but yeah once it worked it was totally worth it. 5 watts feels like nothing on paper but in practice its suprising what propagation will do for you.