[Today’s run: rest day]
At the junction of QRP and DX is this kind of thing.
I received a QSL card in the mail the other day. N2EIK and I had a contact last year: 12/31/2010. I have it in my log. I just received his card, then I filled out a postcard and sent it back to him in the SASE he had included.
The most interesting part of that particular radio conversation was that N2EIK (John) was in Kingston, NY and I was in Columbus, MS. He was running 250 mW output. That is 1/4 of a watt.
I was using an old Drake R-4B receiver. For the transmitter I was using an attempt at the “First Transmitter” in the EMRFD book (Experimental Methods in RF Design). It puts out about 2 watts.
Dave included a little note with his QSL card noting that we did 979 miles on 1/4 of a watt.
One watt is about what it takes to run one of those little LED nightlights. One fourth of a watt is not very much. I could hear John turning off and on his little nightlight (so to speak) nearly 1000 miles from here.
For those keeping score at home, my antenna at the time was a G5RV, flat-top at 20 ft oriented N-S. I don’t know what antenna or receiver John was using.
(Edited: I was repeatedly using the wrong name! I hope I have it right now)
