so ive been running 100w for about three years now and honestly got a little bored, contacts were coming easy and it started feeling like just pushing a button. a buddy at our club kept bugging me to try QRP and i finally caved and built a little Pixie kit just to see what the fuss was about. took me an evening, nothing fancy, but getting that first contact at like 500mw or whatever those things put out was genuinely one of the more exciting moments ive had in this hobby in a long time.

anyway i liked it enough that i went ahead and got an Elecraft KX2 which yeah is a lot more money than a Pixie kit but wow what a difference in usability. been taking it out to the parks on the air stuff and its been a blast. my question for anyone who does this regularly is what antennas are you using for portable? im currently just throwing up a random wire with a small tuner but i feel like im leaving something on the table. also any tips for working digital modes at low power? i tried JS8Call the other day and it was interesting but im not totally sure i was doing it right.

the KX2 is such a great radio, good choice. for portable antennas honestly a lot of us just use an end fed half wave with a small 49:1 unun and they work really well, you can get the wire up in a tree and have a decent signal without needing much of a counterpoise or ground situation. i built mine for about fifteen bucks in parts and it tunes up on most bands no problem. the KX2s internal tuner can handle a decent amount of mismatch too so that helps.

for JS8Call at QRP levels just be patient, the mode is pretty forgiving and 5 watts will get you surprisingly far if conditions are decent. i worked a station in Germany from my backyard in Ohio running 5w into a wire and it still kind of blows my mind. main thing is just make sure your audio levels going into whatever interface youre using are set right because if you overdrive it you lose efficiency fast and the signal gets messy. parks on the air is such a good time, what parks are you near?

oh man the Pixie kit is how i got into QRP too, those things are ridiculous but in a fun way haha. i eventually moved up to a YouKits HB1B which is somewhere between a Pixie and a real radio and its been solid for what it is. havent made the jump to KX2 territory yet, maybe someday. the antenna question is the thing i keep going back and forth on honestly, i tried a linked dipole for a while which is nice because you dont need a tuner but swapping links when you change bands gets old real fast when its cold outside.