so ive been wanting to get into QRP for a while now and finally pulled the trigger on one of those QCX mini kits from QRP Labs. took me two evenings to build it which honestly was longer than i expected but i was being really careful with the toroids. winding those things is kind of meditative once you get the hang of it

anyway got it working on 40m and made my first contact with it last weekend running maybe 3 watts into a simple end fed wire out the window. guy in ohio came back to me first call which kind of blew my mind. i kept waiting for him to ask me to repeat everything but the audio report was decent he said

the thing that gets me is how little power is actually doing the work here. i spent years thinking i needed a big linear and a beam to work anything and here im sitting there with a little board the size of a deck of cards making contacts. makes you think about all that money i spent on other gear lol

anyone else gone deep into QRP portable stuff? thinking about doing some SOTA activations this summer and trying to figure out if i should build something even lighter or just use the QCX as is. also curious what antennas people are packing for that kind of thing

QCX mini is such a good first kit honestly. i built one a couple years back and it was the thing that got me actually interested in homebrew. the receiver on those is surprisingly good for what it is

for SOTA i've been using mine with a linked dipole that i can switch between 40 and 20. takes maybe 5 minutes to set up if you have a decent tree or a telescoping pole. the whole thing rolls up into a stuff sack and weighs almost nothing. 3 watts into a dipole at elevation will get you a pile up if the band is cooperating, trust me. some of my best DX has been from hilltops with embarrassingly simple wire antennas

one thing worth knowing before you head out — the QCX runs warm when you're transmitting for extended periods so if it's a hot summer day just keep an eye on it. never caused me a problem but i've read about it. also bring a fully charged battery pack, that thing sips current but you still want margin for a full activation

aw man the first QRP contact feeling is something else right. i remeber doing my first one and just staring at the rig like wait that actually worked??

i dont have a QCX but ive been eyeing the uSDX builds lately, people seem to have mixed results with those but the multiband capability is tempting for the price. might be my next project. anyway congrats on the contact and the build