James Taylor

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.

QRZ is the one that tripped me up forever because it sounds like it should mean something about interference but nope, its just who is calling or sometimes used as like a general CQ type call on some repeaters. took me way longer than id like to admit to figure that one out
also worth knowing QSY means change frequency, youll hear that in contests a lot or when someone wants to move a contact to a clear spot