This video clip was shot by my friend Bob, KC2RDU. It shows me making a low power (QRP) contact to a ham in NC from our club’s annual hamfest in NJ. This was…

June 15, 2013.

23 replies
  1. DarkStarPDX
    DarkStarPDX says:

    It’s amazing what you can do with 5 watts. From my 2013 Field Day site in
    Oregon I had no issues contacting the east coast on SSB (mostly 20 meters)
    using a 136 foot doublet. Next year I’ll probably get a dedicated 20 meter
    beam and run a 80/40 inverted-vee dipole. 73, Chris – KU7PDX

    Reply
  2. kd1s
    kd1s says:

    A lot of people completely forget that little thing in Part 97 about power
    levels, E.g. the MINIMUM necessary parts. I’m guilty of this too – I’m
    within reach of a ton of UHF and VHF repeaters and I just plug the full 5W
    into them. My two radios can only go as low as 300mW.

    Reply
  3. Mike Tranchemontagne
    Mike Tranchemontagne says:

    oh good, it was just wasting space at my place. I think I must have got it
    at Radio Shack, when I worked there in the 70s and was doing CB base
    station installs.

    Reply
  4. Jacob Hipps
    Jacob Hipps says:

    Would be awesome to be able to pick up one of those decommissioned TV
    remote vans with the extending mast antenna! What sort of gain do you
    reckon you all had from your setup? I remember when I was living in Atlanta
    a few years back, the local WSB channel 2 news remote van left their mast
    fully extended and hit a HV transmission line, wreaking all sorts of havok!
    Whoops! (google: “wsb van power line”). Anyway, looks like you all had some
    fun– cheers 🙂

    Reply
  5. SeanBZA
    SeanBZA says:

    Seen the same with a mobile crane with both a failed interlock and a
    leaking hydraulic block, which erected itself while travelling, and found
    the 132kV line at the top of a hill. Needed a bit of welding of a tip and
    fixing of the 2 faults.

    Reply
  6. Jim Griffiths
    Jim Griffiths says:

    I once ‘accidentally’ contacted an airport 22 miles away using a crappy
    10mW home-made transmitter with a couple of 2N3904 transistors connected to
    a piece of speaker cable (as the antenna). It’s amazing how sensitive
    receiver equipment is nowadays.

    Reply
  7. Mike Tranchemontagne
    Mike Tranchemontagne says:

    nice contact! say did you ever find a use for that rg-8 I gave you? I had
    it for probably decades, was it any good?

    Reply

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