so i've been lurking on this forum for probably two years now reading about QRP and always thinking 'yeah someday i'll try that' and last month i finally just did it. built a Michigan Mighty Mite from a kit i found, took me three evenings of fumbling around with the soldering iron but got it together and it actually works.

first time i keyed it up i honestly expected nothing to happen because my solder joints looked pretty rough in a few spots but the thing fired right up, maybe 500mw or so on 40m. spent a few nights just listening and calling CQ and nothing, starting to think i'd made a mistake. then last thursday night around 8pm local i got a response from a guy in Tennessee, im in Ohio so not a huge distance but honestly it felt like i'd worked DX. we had a solid little QSO, signal reports were decent considering im running less than a watt into a dipole in my backyard.

anyway i guess im just posting because i wanted to share it with people who would actually appreciate it, my wife was happy for me but i could tell she had no idea why i was so excited about talking to someone in Tennessee with a radio i built myself. anyone else remember their first QRP contact? does it get more addictive from here because im already looking at the 4state QRP group kits

oh man it absolutely gets more addictive, fair warning. i started with a little rockmite probably eight years ago and now i have a shelf full of homebrew stuff and a KX3 for portable work. the Tennessee contact is legit though, dont let anyone tell you 500mw contacts over short distances dont count, thats the whole game with QRP honestly, you learn so much more about propagation and antenna efficiency when you cant just crank the power up to cover your mistakes.

the 4state kits are excellent by the way, good documentation and the community around them is really helpful if you get stuck. what band are you thinking about for your next build? 20m opens up a lot more possibilities for distance if you want to really stretch those milliwatts

thats awesome congrats. i just got my ticket last year and QRP is actually what got me into ham radio in the first place, watching youtube videos of people operating from mountain tops with tiny rigs. im still on the fence about building vs buying something like a used FT-817 to start, feels like building might be biting off more than i can chew right now but posts like yours make me think maybe i should just try it