Performance is all about SNR and your patience quotient. I have checked into the Elecrafter 20m SSB Net many times now running my K3/10 with about 16w output. I never calibrated the transmitter output and that was what its max output is on 20m. It drops to 8w on 10m & 6m.
I'm sure others were stronger than me but I have always gotten in (even when N7SP has his antennas pointed east). I believe it does not take lots of power to work on HF quite a bit of the time. I mean when a signal is coming in S9++ I can also copy the station just as easily at S3-4. That is over 30-dB in signal strength difference. 500w vs 0.5w? Note that I did not say working DX or CW or FD. My suspicion is that if the FCC restricted power output to 100w it would not make much difference as the band would not be filled with QRO QRM noise. But as long as one guy has to run 10kW ERP then all the others must to keep up! How I come by this is I live where there is a small ham radio density so the band is fairly quiet. Noise without the PRE on 20m runs S3, so all you need to have a decent SNR is to produce a S3 signal in my receiver. S5 signals are arm-chair copy. I do know that the noise floor is more like S9 in the cities (sorry but you chose to live there). I left LA in 1979 for rural Alaska and never had a regret. My first few years I lived in a wall tent 2-miles off the grid and enjoyed S-0 noise on 80m. Once power was wired to the neighborhood that went up to S4-5. I now live in a buried utility neighborhood and that results in a couple s-units lower noise. I just checked 80m and it is S3. I will say having the best antenna one can manage is a "big equalizer". I use to run a 20m dipole and now have a $75 30-year old Hygain 3-element tribander (no great shakes but probably an honest 5-6 dB gain). So my ERP = 16*4 = 64w (wow) When I was a Novice in 1958 running 75w to my 6146 (DX-35) on 40m CW I never felt disadvantaged. But I sure would love to see the propagation of those years. I listened to guys running 50w AM on 10m working the world. Of course conditions can change and then having a bit more ERP makes the contact. That is why I am building a 300w HF PA. PS: if you really want to run QRP, try 10mw on 10-GHz! One can do a couple hundred miles with only that on 10-GHz using a small horn antenna with 17-dB gain (EIRP = 10*50= 500mw). 73, Ed - KL7UW, WD2XSH/45 ====================================== BP40IQ 500 KHz - 10-GHz www.kl7uw.com EME: 50-1.1kw?, 144-1.4kw, 432-100w, 1296-60w, 3400-? DUBUS Magazine USA Rep dubus...@gmail.com ====================================== ______________________________________________________________ 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
