For what it's worth, guys ... any day can be QRP day.
I'll soon be applying for the AMSAT Achievement Award using confirmed contacts that were all made while I was transmitting 50 milliwatts RF out from my Yaesu VX-7R, on 2 AA Duracells - the same set of AA Duracells, actually. I ended up making 51 contacts at 50 mW RF out, and another 3 at 300 mW RF out, from that one set of Duracells.
Only 4 of the 20 contacts I'll use for the Achievement Award came on AO-51's QRP pair of 145.880 up and 435.300 down. The other 16 contacts included all three Mode-J FM LEO satellites during operation on the standard V/U pairs. It took me six days of operating to wear out the Duracells, and I ended up with 20 states, Ontario, Mexico and Venezuela worked. The highlight for me was state No. 20, thanks to Mark, WA8SME - it was my first-ever contact (any mode, any band) with W1AW. That was cool!
So any time you'd like a QRP day, just reduce the output power and go for it!
73 to all,
Tim - N3TL AMSAT Member No. 36820 Athens, Ga. - EM84ha -------------- Original message from Ben Jackson bbj@innismir.net: --------------
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Nigel Gunn G8IFF/W8IFF wrote:
Remember the weekly QRP day on ALL the sats until a few years ago?
I actually like the idea of a QRP day. When Drew started bringing the 2nd V/U transponder online last winter/early spring it was fun to have a (nearly) empty satellite to play on and see "how low I could go" to get in. (5W into a vertical)
Now that I'm testing a more directional antenna, it would be fun to not have to deal with the 50W stations muscling through.
Ben Jackson - N1WBV - New Bedford, MA bbj innismir.net - http://www.innismir.net/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
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