I have been a keen QRP operator for a long time. I can remember way before I was licensed reading an article in an old CQ magazine about a ham with a small homebrew QRP rig camping in some secluded spot and working amazing DX at night with his wire antenna over a tree. I think that story was one of my biggest inspirations to obtain my license! It seemed like such an adventure being out in the wild and working the world on low power by the firelight.

Now fast forward  many years.....

In 1996, shortly after I obtained my ZR (restricted, non HF) license I started learning CW with the sole purpose of upgrading my license so that I could operate QRP on the HF bands. After a few initial false starts, I was having a problem learning CW, I discovered that my problem was with slow CW, starting at 5wpm simply did not work for me, I was trying to listen to the dots and dashes and trying to remember what each meant. It did not work well. What I did discover that at higher speed, at least 25wpm and more, I was hearing the "music" and the words. Soon I could copy well at higher speed and the upgrade to a ZS (unrestricted) license was done. My first call sign was ZS6VER. Then the fun really started!

Initially I was using normal radios turned down to 5W or below for QRP work. It worked well but was not ideal for portable or hiking use. I did build a few transmitters and receivers but I was never really satisfied with their performance. As soon as the Icom IC-706 was launched I acquired one, This was more like it, small enough to carry but with decent performance on the crowded bands. There was only one disadvantage, even at low power it was heavy on the battery, and large batteries are heavy. I normally used 7Ah gel cell batteries to power the IC-706, they were not that light but do provide a reasonable amount of operating time.

In spite of these large current requirements I still had lots of fun with the radio in the bush, on mountain tops activating SOTA peaks and even on a yacht.

And then the Yaesu FT-817 was announced, now this was more like it! I just love my FT-817, I have been using it for years and it still amazes me with it's great performance and lots of features in such a small and light package. I am now looking for a later FT-818D model but that is mostly because I am weak at resisting new toys.... (Update 2021, the FT-818D never happened, the R928+ SDR took it's place)

I have been using the internal battery on the FT-817 and also the same 7Ah gel cell as used on the 706. Over the last year or so I have been involved with multi rotor drones used for aerial photography. As a side effect of building and flying these drones I acquired  a large collection of Lipo batteries, ideal to power the 817 so now I have a power supply that is a lot lighter, less than 30% of the weight of the gel cell for the same capacity, and more compact!

For QRP field work I have been using my multi band dipoles, normally legs for 40m, 20m and 10m on the same feed line. This works well for 10, 15, 30 and 40m. I have also recently added a LDG 100 II tuner to help with matching the antenna. This is a light auto tuner that needs very low power, it will run for a year or more with an internal set of AA batteries.

I am now also looking at an end-fed dipole for 6-40m, hope to try it soon. If it works well I will publish the details here.

Update 7/6/2023: I recently took the little R928+, along with my EFRW antenna to my yacht. I lifted the end of the antenna up the mast, about 20m and connected the ground to the railing on the yacht. Running about 6m of RG58 (all I had) the setup worked surprisingly well. I did use my little HF-100 auto tuner to lower the SWR on some bands.

The combination worked well, I just need to setup a decent power line from the yacht's 12V battery bank. I just had it conected to a 12V outlet normally used to charge phones and iPads from and at anything above 2.5W the voltage was dropping right down causing distortion on SSB, an easy fix I will do next time.

Update 16/4/2021: This morning at about 7am we had a power outage. Since I had just completed my EFLW antenna I decided it was the perfect opportunity to take it out into the garden and test it. I connected 17.5m of wire to the output of the unun and made 8 x 4m radials. The feed side of the antenna was attached to a low branch of a nice shady tree and the other side I ran out to another tree and attached it about 3m above the ground. I wanted it low incase I needed to trim the wire a bit.

The MFJ antenna analizer showed that the antenna had SWR dips at 40m, 20m and very low SWR at 15m but all the dips were just below the bands. I trimmed the wire a bit and tried again. Eventually I removed about 0.5m of the wire, the dips were now inside the bands but other than 15m the SWR was too high to use just like that. I connected a MFJ manual tuner and tuned the antenna, now it was easy to match on all bands.

I experimented a bit with the radials, by far the best result was with the radials attached to the ground lug of the tuner and not to the unun. I then connected my trusty Yaesu FT-817 and listened around a bit. Since it was still early in the morning only 40m showed signs of life. The FT-817 was running from internal batteries so max power out was no more than 2.5W but soon I had made a few QSO's on CW and SSB with good reports. The antenna seems quiet and works better than what I expected after I saw the rather high SWR on most bands. I briefly took the FT-817 inside and connected it to my 40m dipole, the WFLW seemed to give better results, on RX anyway! Maybe I need to check the feed line (rather old) to the dipole, it is MUCH higher than the EFLW so it should produce better results.

Anyway, went outside again and made another QSO. I was just finished when I heard my name being called, not on the radio but from my gate! I was rally glad to see our local courier lady, she had my R928 Plus!

I had it unpacked and running in no time! What a nice little radio! I did disassemble it to check all the solder work. I am glad I did, I found the screws holding the PCB's together were loose to the point of falling out, the PCB's would not have moved but the metal screws could well have caused a short! I also found that the USB-C port had dry solder joints on the shell, this allowed a small amount of movement in the connector that would surely lead to broken connections. I re-soldered this carefully, everything now seems nice and solid!

Once I had it reassembled I ran into a problem. A normal CW key worked fine but when I tried to key the radio from a computer, using a standard interface I have used for 25 years on lots of different radios, I found that as soon as I plugged the interface into the computer the radio would key and not unkey until I unplugged again. I checked all the cables and connectors but no-go. Seems like there is tiny bit of current flowing even when the "contacts" in the keyer (transistor switch) is suppose to be open. It has never bothered and other radio. This is rather frustrating as for contesting I use the N1MM+ logger and the keyer that goes with it.

After testing a few other keyers I decided that this is not going to work without some mods to the radio or the keyer....

But there is another option! You can also key the radio via the USB port, I tried this and everything was up and running.

By now our power was back and I was in the shack playing with the radio and making a few contacts. First impressions are that the RX is really great and it seems nice and selective and not bothered with close-by strong signals. On CW the filters are really nice with steep skirts, far better than most of the other radios in my shack.

I still want to upgrade the firmware to the latest, it has really old firmware and then I want to setup everything from the bias to the EQ and power output on all bands. Talking about bands, this radio has the Si5251a synthesizer so it will go to 6m, I tested it there and it does TX, it might also work on 4m and 2m, it does RX there but I need to check TX, first I want to make sure the bias on the finals and output limits are fine as oscillation could be a problem on the higher bands.

R928 Plus up and running

I think I am going to love this little radio!

Update 1/10/2014: A quick update on the QRP DXCC quest. As of this afternoon I am standing on 253 worked and 156 confirmed. So far it has been relatively easy but that will soon be over with all the easy ones worked, now the real challenge starts....

Update 23/8/2014: I just had DXCC entity (QRP) number 100 confirmed this morning. This was since May this year when I became active again and started with a QRP only DXCC quest. I have actually worked around 180 but I have 100 confirmations via LoTW. Number 100 was Reunion on 40m as a matter of interest.

Update 7/7/2014:

A few notes on techniques I use when QRP contesting and DX'ing, also applicable if you run higher power.

The two things I do when I am contesting (and DX'ing) seriously with QRP or even high power that helps with totals are:

1) When conditions are not good enough to run a frequency with QRP "Search and Pounce" is the only game in town. When I do this there are a few smaller details that work.

Firstly I do not randomly jump around the band segment. I will take the segment where the action is from one side and slowly work up or down. I make a note of VERY station I hear calling CQ. When I ID a station I will try and work him (the actual technique differs according to the situation but I will elaborate on this in a later post).

If I cannot work him within a few calls I will move on, but with his call and freq noted for the next pass. I use a large piece of paper and mark the frequencies and calls in sequence on that. If I hear a station I have worked or I am not interested (in a DX situation) I will also mark him so that I do not waste time on him on the next pass.

After a few passes it is a good idea to re-listen to all stations again as it might be a different station on the same freq.

2) While all the above is happening I use the second RX (in the same radio) to listen "ahead" on the same band to ID the next station I want to try. This can be confusing in the beginning but you soon get used to it. It might help to run the 2 frequencies on a headset, one into each ear.

What I do is while the main station I am trying to work is busy giving a report to someone else I will concentrate on the second RX. Sometimes there will be an "easy" one on the second RX so I will quickly make that the main one and work him. I always try to be aware of conditions on the second radio, if I hear someone calling without replies I will pounce on him quickly!

This works well as it helps to keep the rate up, you don't waste time listening to other peoples reports or waiting for a call sign of someone I do not want to work or have worked.

It is worth noting that when I get to the edge of the segment I work I don't reverse direction, I QSY to the opposite end again and start from there. As a habit I normally work bottom to top. Often the "big" stations will grab a spot towards the bottom of the CW segment with smaller stations higher up. Sometimes the smaller stations are easier to work as they do not have huge pile-ups.

3. While all the above is happening I will have a second radio, on a second antenna (often just a fan-dipole), Listening to a different band. Depending on the direction the MUF is moving I might be listening above or below the main band I am working. The main purpose of this radio is to look for band openings. Often when a band opens you will hear a station calling with a decent signal but no-one is getting back to him. This is the IDEAL time to snag him with your QRP signal!

At some point as the MUF and conditions change the second radio will become more productive than the main. I will then move the main radio, with the best antenna, to that band and QSY the second radio up or down the spectrum depending on where the action is.

I also use the second radio to look for multipliers on other bands that might be open but maybe not as open as the main band.

All of this can get quite noisy and confusing, I might be listening on up to 4 frequencies at the same time (the second radio also runs 2 x RX's if conditions are good or towards the end of the contest when I have worked most workable stations) but I promise with practice it becomes easier. On CW the ability to listen to more than one station at a time helps......

Update 1/7/2014: I only had a little bit of time for amateur radio today but it was fun! After making up a new paddle too radio cable for the FT-817, it uses a small plug for the key, I decided to try it on the bands. 20m produced a few JA stations and a bit later a few US stations, signals were weak but workable. After the band closed I moved to 40m for a few local contacts. I found 5R8UI calling on 7.153 SSB, a call at 5W secured the QSO for a new one on QRP, wish it was CW....

After that I worked a few locals stations on 7.020, the local CW "water hole", it was nice to see so much local CW activity! After this it was back to 20m where a CQ resulted in a small pile-up, have not had one of those for years! The 20m band was behaving strangely, it seemed to close and the a while later there would be strong signals again only to fade again after a few minutes. A final opening produced YU1DW (Serbia) before it seemed to close for the evening.

Update 30/6/2014: A nice surprise awaited me when I checked on my QSL cards on eQSL.net this morning, DXCC entity 100 confirmed, this is for contacts since I returned to amateur radio on 25 May this year, all contacts were on CW and running QRP power. Now the challenge is to get to 300+ DXCC entities running only QRP, that won't be easy!

I need to sort out my LOTW accreditation, it seems to be taking long.....

Contests

As a keen contester I have also competed in a few contests using QRP. For these contests I used the FT-817 from my base station feeding a TH5DX antenna with good results, including winning a CQWW WPX SSB contest (QRP) and setting an all time record that still stands for Africa during a CQWW CW contest, see the results below:

ARRL 10m DX Contest 2002
CQ WW WPX SSB (29-30/03/2003)
CQ WW WPX CW  (24-25/05/2003)
ARRL DX CW (15-16/02/2003)

In 2003 I competed in the ARRL DX CW completion using QRP. The score I posted was enough to win the contest (QRP section). Today (2014) the score still stands as a continental record! Below you can see the extract from the ARRL records database:

=====================================
C O N T I N E N T A L   R E C O R D S
=====================================

Continent    Category    Station                      Score   QSOs Mults
Year
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Africa       SO MIX QP   5Z4FO                        55678    192    97
1992
Africa       SO MIX LP   CT9/R9DX (R9DX, op.)       2201000   2673   250
2013
Africa       SO MIX HP   ZD8Z (N6TJ, op.)           4733880   5063   309
2002
Africa       SO SSB QP   EA8AUW (EC8AUA, op.)          2400     50    24
2005
Africa       SO SSB LP   EA8MT                       610450   2114   145
2011
Africa       SO SSB HP   D4C (IZ4DPV, op.)          1885290   4810   197
2013
Africa       SO CW QP    ZS6DX                       138376    364    98
2002
Africa       SO CW LP    CN8KD                       841728   1550   137
2013
Africa       SO CW HP    ZD8LII (G0LII, op.)        1367520   2310   148
1992
Africa       MS LP       ZR9C                        825440   1171   220
2013
Africa       MS HP       D4C                        4351000   3962   380
2011

Update 21/06/2014: Late afternoon I moved the IC-728 to the workbench to check out why it is only outputting 50W. Since it was in use as my "rag chew" radio I decided to put another radio in the same position till later. I gave my trusty old Yaesu FT-850 (Japanese version of the FT-890) a wash and a test. Once it was connected I looked around the bands and found some CW signals on 20m, sounded like a contest with signal reports and zones.

I connected a key and soon I was having great fun running 5W into the G5RV. Eventually the band closed down but by then I had more than 100 contacts in the log most from Japan, the far east and eastern Europe. Great fun and running 5W makes it even better. I am feeling a lot more comfortable running high speed CW, I am really looking forward to a full CW contest in our spring or summer with good propagation.

QRP is still great fun and when conditions are poor like they are at the moment it can be a fun challenge!

Yaesu FT-850 humming away on 14MHz CW, I love the great (optional) CW filters on this old radio.

Update 14/06/2014:  Today I decided to practice my CW a bit. Initially I only heard a few weak signals on 15m, slowly they started picking up till they were workable with low power (I am still loving QRP, running 4w out of the IC-728 according to my Bird watt meter).

I quickly realized that there was some kind of contest going on! Soon I was in the swing of things and working stations one after the other, having fun! By the time the band started going down again I had around 50 stations in the log. What was may more important was that my CW is really picking up! Both in speed, accuracy and "filter" capabilities on a crowded band. I was using my old "rag-chew on 40" IC-728 set to about 4w (lowest setting) that has no CW filters or DSP, need to move the CW key to a better CW radio.

What I did find interesting was that even though the bands are not great and signals were low, most hardly moving the needle, I still managed to work all the stations I called, and quite a few on the first call. I was using the G5RV antenna at about 20m so the antenna was not the greatest. QRP does work, and when you combine it with CW you can work the world!

(c)1996-2023 R Venter