Hi gang,
I've had this unusual metric in the back of my mind for a few years: How
long would it take to make one QRP QSO on each of the HF bands from 80-10
meters?
This challenge will get the operator thinking about antennas, propagation,
and where/when they're most likely to find other stations on a given band.
(It has a bit of a "decathlon" feel to it in terms of agility and
versatility.) You might learn something about your gear, Elecraft or
otherwise, and experience renewed appreciation for the characteristics of
different bands.
Given that propagation varies considerably between 3.5 and 28 MHz, the
answer is probably 8 hours, or thereabouts, with typical antennas and
average conditions. But there are strategies to reduce this, such as
operating during a contest weekend and/or during peak in solar conditions.
To keep the challenge relevant to all of Elecraft's "all-HF-band" QRP rigs,
we'll use the following constraints:
1. Make one QSO on each of 80, 60, 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 12, and 10 m, in
any order
(Exclude any band on which you can't operate due to regulatory
restrictions)
2. 10 W max (a level playing field inclusive of the KX2, KX3, K2, K3/10,
K4/10,
or your choice of other rigs with power adjusted accordingly)
3. CW and SSB modes only (because FT8 is like shooting fish in a barrel,
24/7)
4. No skeds (pre-arranged contacts)
This is not a contest -- it's strictly for fun and enlightenment, and
improving on your best time. But if you'd like to receive a bit of
acknowledgement for your effort, please send your total time and a list of
the callsigns worked (and maybe a soapbox comment or two) to:
sales at elecraft dot com
With the subject line: QRP 80-10 Challenge
We'll post the times in one or more future newsletter articles. We'll also
send you one of our new "Elements of Elecraft" stickers.
73,
Wayne
N6KR
--
Elecraft, Inc.
______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net
This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
