so i've been licensed about two years now and mostly just used my Baofeng and then eventually got a used Icom for HF but i kept seeing people talk about QRP and building kits and honestly i thought it sounded kind of nerdy and niche but then i got bored over a long weekend and ordered one of those QCX mini kits from QRP Labs and oh man i completely understand the obsession now

took me probably 4 hours to build it, which is longer than i expected but i was being really careful with the soldering and double checking everything. first power-up it worked which honestly shocked me because i was sure id mess something up. got it tuned to 40m and within like 20 minutes had a contact with a guy in Kentucky, im in Ohio so not huge distance but i was running 5 watts and using just a wire antenna i threw up in the backyard and it felt like magic compared to my 100w radio somehow

anyway now im looking at portable operating and wondering what people use for antennas when they go out in the field with these things. i have a crappy telescoping whip i got somewhere but i suspect theres way better options. also what do people use for battery power when doing SOTA or just parks stuff

welcome to the rabbit hole haha, fair warning you will never fully climb out. the QCX mini is such a good starter kit honestly, QRP Labs really nailed the price to performance thing on those.

for antennas when im out portable i mostly use a simple end fed half wave, you can buy them from a few places or wind your own transformer if youre feeling ambitious after the kit build. pair it with a short piece of paracord and a fishing line throw weight and you can get wire up in trees pretty quickly. for 40m you need about 66 feet of wire which sounds like a lot but it packs down to nothing.

battery wise ive been using a 3 cell LiPo that i got from a hobby shop, gives me way more capacity than those little USB power banks and the QCX runs great on it. just watch your voltage, those kits can handle up to about 12v i think but dont push it. some people use the little 4ah sealed lead acid batteries which are heavier but dead simple and you dont have to think about them much.

man your story is almost exactly mine from like 6 months ago except i screwed up two of the toroids on my first attempt and had to reorder parts lol. that moment when you make your first contact on something you built yourself is genuinely hard to explain to non hams

i dont do SOTA yet but ive been doing some POTA and for quick portable stuff i just use a random wire with a 9:1 unun and a small tuner, its not super efficient but its flexible and i can work multiple bands. probably not ideal for only 5w but ive made it work. one of these days im gonna build a proper EFHW setup like the other guy mentioned