so ive been wanting to do this for probably two years now and last weekend i finally got my act together. built a little pixie kit, nothing fancy, just wanted to see if i could actually make contacts running 500mw on 40m. took it out to the state park about 20 miles from home, had a simple wire dipole hung between two trees maybe 25 feet up, and just started calling CQ on the QRP calling frequency.

honestly i wasnt expecting much. i figured id get ignored or maybe pick up one contact if i was lucky. ended up working 6 stations over about 3 hours, furthest was a guy in ohio which is maybe 400 miles from me. nothing crazy by DX standards but i was running half a watt. HALF A WATT. the whole setup runs off a little lipo pack and the whole rig weighs maybe a pound including the battery.

the keyer paddle i made from two pieces of pcb board and some hardware store bits, took about an hour to put together and it actually works pretty decent. a few of the guys i worked seemed genuinely surprised when i told them my power level, one asked me twice like he thought i meant 500 watts.

anyway just wanted to share because i feel like this is something more people should try. if youre on the fence about building something, just do it. even if the pixie kit isnt the most refined design in the world it gets you on the air and there is something really satisfying about making a contact with something you put together yourself.

man this brings back memories, i did almost the exact same thing about 8 years ago with a 4state QRP group kit out at a county park. there is really nothing like it. one thing i found that helped a lot was spending some time on the antenna rather than worrying about the rig — even a few more feet of height made a noticeable difference for me. also if youre not already using the reverse beacon network to see if youre getting out, that thing is addictive when youre running QRP, you can spot your own signal and see exactly who is hearing you even if they dont respond.

ohio at 400 miles on 500mw is solid for 40m in the afternoon. wait till you try it at night, the band opens up and you can work guys way further east or into the plains states without much trouble. definitely try 20m too when propagation is decent, i worked a station in spain once running 2 watts from a hillside and nearly fell off the log i was sitting on.

thats really cool, i keep telling myself ill build one of those kits but never quite get there. can i ask what antenna wire you used? i have some leftover wire from another project and wondering if its ok or if theres a specific type thats better for portable stuff. also did you need anything special to tune it or did it just work on 40m straight away