As QRP contests are pretty laid back affairs where no one really cares who the winners are you don’t want to take them to serious. The object is to relax and have fun in the outdoors. Comfortably listening to CW wafting over the radio in a nice park is the way to go. Leave your cares behind and join your fellow QRPers in having some fun. That’s what it's all about.

I’ve operated in a fair amount of QRP contests out in the field over the past years in various conditions. I’d thought I’d pass along what I learned through trial and error. You want to be able to go out and easily setup all your gear and antennas. The less problems you have the more fun you will have. Pretty simple.

I’ve divided every thing up into sections so that it will be easy to cover the various parts that go into having a fun QRP experience out in the field. I sincerely hope they help some one out in some way.

When you are out in the field working a QRP contest the two main bands that are used are twenty and forty meters. Twenty for during the daylight hours and forty meters for when twenty shuts down for the evening. Though fifteen and ten are used when they are open but as the sunspot cycle goes toward minimum they will be open less and less.

There are a variety of radios out there that could be used for QRP. In fact any radio that can have it's power turned down to five watts or less will work just fine. I have used my old Swan 700CX running at 2 watts and my FT-100D to work QRP. The QRP radios that I have used out in the field are the QRP Plus, SG 2020 and a NorCal 40. All with good success

Now if I am going to operate out in the field the Swan is definitely not a good choice nor for that matter neither is the FT-100D. They both gulp power like crazy compared to the QRP radios I have mentioned. You want to use a radio that has low power requirements on both transmit and receive.

The following radios are good for operating away from the power mains as they all have low power requirements

NorCal 20 and 40 radios

Elecraft's K1 and K2s

Small Wonder Labs radios

There are more than these available but these are the ones most commonly used in the QRP community. Click on their links above to find out more information.

The one thing to remember is to keep it simple! Easy to erect antennas are the way to go when you want to get on the air with a minimum of hassle. While you are spending all your time erecting that double bi square antenna you could be operating. Best idea is to stick to simple dipoles and verticals when out in the field.

A good portable antenna is a half wave vertical with a quarter wave radial. Just toss one end up in a tree, use a tuner at the base to load it up and you are good to go. Works fine at a forty five degree angle too.

A good multiband antenna is a 44 foot doublet wire antenna fed with ladder line in the middle. It tunes up easily on ten through forty meters. However make sure it is stable. If it is bouncing up and down in the wind you find that it's SWRs will be jumping all over the place.

I had that same problem and it drove me nuts trying to figure out what was causing it. I finally modeled the doublet in EZNEC and found that the impedance would change as the antenna's height was moved up and down.

A Wrist Rocket sling shot is nice to have along. Using round fishing weights and some nylon string you can really get that antenna high up in the trees. Lay a bunch of string on the ground next to you, tie a 2 or 3 ounce weight to it and let fly. Some hams use a 6 or 8 pound fishing line to tie from the weight to the string. If it gets hung up in a tree they can snap it easily and the fishing weight will then fall back to the ground. Not a bad idea.

A great device for carrying your coax and wire is a simple bucket. I bought a orange bucket with a lid from a local hardware store. It’s one of those larger buckets you see the construction guys carrying their tools in.

In my bucket the coax and wire fits nicely when they’re rolled up. I also keep a hammer, stakes, string, weights and a slingshot in there. That way all my equipment for putting up antennas resides in one place. I also carry along a second bucket with more coax, wire and other parts that I may need.

I hook a belt pouch to my pants that has places to hold a pair of wire strippers/cutters, sharp knife, some solder and a butane soldering iron. They are great for when you are working on an antenna that is a hundred feet from your tool box.

When you are out in the field you want to make sure you have plenty of battery power available as you don't want to get caught short. By finding out your power needs you will be able to bring the correct amount of battery power along.

First thing you want to do is calculate your power requirements. As you listen a lot more than you transmit a one third transmitting to two thirds listening per hour is a good ratio.

The easiest way to calculate this is to take your rig's transmit amperage and divide it by three.

Take that result and add it to your rig's receiver amperage and you will have a good idea of how much power you will need per hour.

Transmit amperage equals 1 amp

Receive amperage equals .500

Add the .333 amps to .500 amps and you get .833 amps per hour. Round it up to 1 amp to be on the safe side and your amperage cost per hour is 1 amp.

So for a eight hour QRP contest you will need a battery that puts out eight amps right? WRONG! Most batteries rated voltage will decrease slowly as they discharge.

Gell cells will put out 80 percent of their amperage from 13.8 volts down to 12 volts. After that the voltage drops off quickly

So for a eight hour QRP contest where you need a total of 8 amps you will need a battery that holds at least 9.6 amps.

8 amps times .20 equals 1.6 amps

Add 1.6 to 8 amps which equals 9.6 amps and you have the right size battery for your needs. I would always round up just to be on the safe side. So a ten amp battery would be perfect for your needs.

Then again buying a 100 amp deep cycle battery will work just fine for most needs. If you are driving to where you are going then you don't have to worry about the weight. You will NOT run out of battery power with one of those. Just watch out for battery acid and sparks when you either are moving or charging. Gells cells don't have those problems as they are sealed hence the reason why most hams use them instead.

Shelter

Ah shelter that which makes operating a little more enjoyable. Sitting under a tree in the shade operating on a nice warm day is great. Doing the same thing during rain however is a whole other story. Good to have some kind of shelter to operate in.

I have operated before in a VW Van during a raging winter storm . The van was shaking in the wind while the rain was sheeting down the windows like crazy. All the time it raged we were nice and dry making contact after contact. It was great!

If you are going to be out in the field in park or campground make sure you have comfortable accommodations available. So that you are out of the sun, rain or snow. I highly recommend that during the fall through early spring months when the weather isn't so nice you rent a van from Uhaul. I have used one and they are pretty nice. Just put a fold up table in the back, string the coax through the window and you have it made

Food

Ah that which sustains us. Food is good. When you are out in the field you need substance to keep you going. Coffee in the morning, a good lunch, drinks and snacks make all the difference in the world.

Well so far I have yet to see a Starbucks at our local parks. Maybe up in Seattle but not down here in California. So you have you bring your own coffee. What I ended up getting was a 12 volt coffee pot from a camping supply place. It's slow as all get out but it does make coffee using the cigarette lighter plugin. I bring a thermos to get me started and then use the coffee maker if I get cold or want more. A coffee pot on a Colman stove works too but I hate going out in the rain to get it.

Donuts, Poptarts or some other kind of pastry are great in the morning to munch on when you get there. Sure good with coffee. Just make sure they aren't to messy.

For lunch bring premade sandwiches. I've tried stopping to make sandwiches, cook lunch and what not. Found that having the sandwiches already made was the best way.. Don't have to dig out the fixin's, clean up a mess, wipe up, etc.

Snacks. Gotta love them. However some don't go along to well with operating. Potato chips, Cheetoos, chips and salsa aren't to good. Anything greasy will get on your CW key, rig, coax, seat, face, hair. You get my drift.

Cookies are good. Crackers and cheese. Anything not greasy.

Check list

Make up a check list of what items you are going to want to bring along. Believe you me you will be glad you did. Every time I wing it I forget something. When you are rushing around getting ready you will forget something. Murphy's law says it will be the very item you need.

I was rushing getting ready as my fellow QRPer Denis KO6GF was on his way over. Thinking I had every thing packed I loaded up his VW van and away we went. When we got there I was unpacking and realized that I had left my QRP Plus at home. Denis said no problem we have mine. So we setup the antenna and got ready for the QRP contest.

Denis turned on his radio and it locked up! Dead! We looked at each other in disbelief. Turned out the internal battery went dead so Denis dug out the replacement and replaced the old one. Bingo the radio came back to life. If that hadn't fixed it we would have had to repack up at least half our gear and go back to my house to get mine. Probably would have ended the day. Hence a checklist is once again a good thing.

What to bring

Always try to bring two of anything that could be critical. That means a backup radio, extra antenna, batteries, coax, fuses. Mission critical stuff like that. I always bring a spool of stranded wire along, SO-259s pre soldered with a small piece of wire, my portable butane soldering gun so that I can whip up an antenna on the spot.

As I mentioned earlier when my 44 foot doublet was bouncing up and down along with the SWRS. We pulled it down and I made up some single band dipoles for 20, 40 and 80 meters. (It was Field Day). They worked great and saved the day. If we would have had just that one antenna we would have been screwed.

A simple first aid kit is a nice have. Make sure it has some antibiotic cream with pain killer in it. Really helps keeping those nicks and scrapes from annoying you to much.

To keep my gear organized I use some green plastic rubber maid boxes. They are big enough to hold my QRP rigs and most of my small stuff. On the lids are labels that list the contents. Really makes it easy to find what I am looking for.

Bring extra clothes and shoes when you go. I was stringing up an antenna in a misty like rain. Didn’t think to much of it until I got in the van. That’s when I realized that my clothes and shoes were pretty soaked. I removed my coat and shoes and managed to stay almost warm the whole time. After that incident I always bring extra warm clothes and shoes along.

Hopefully these various hints will encourage you to go out into the field and operate in the various QRP contests. They will help you have an enjoyable time which is what it is all about!