Category Archives: QRP

CFT1 QRP Rig Has Stolen My Heart!

Posted on May 27, 2026 by robert

My club has been doing a lot to encourage members to obtain their General.  We sponsor POTA events, have a group of POTA mentors who will get them on the air in a park, and general mentors that will help … Continue reading →

Posted in CFT1, QRP, QRP Corner | Leave a comment

Pebble HF Comes to Life & First QSO

Posted on May 21, 2026 by robert

Yesterday, I had a bit of time to finish construction of the Pebble HF.  I’m embarrassed to say that I put another 1.75 hours into it.  In my defense, I was obsessed with getting the LCD perfectly parallel to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Pebble, QRP | 3 Comments

Finally Working on the Pebble HF Radio – Half Way!

Posted on May 19, 2026 by robert

It has been a very busy month so far, but one of the highlights was getting an early adopter Pebble HF kit.  Sadly other things seemed to pop up every day and delayed my beginning the assembly process. At this … Continue reading →

Posted in Pebble, QRP, Soldering | Leave a comment

First QSO with Xiegu G106

Posted on May 5, 2026 by robert

I’ve decided to do a series of QRP presentations at my radio club – trying to spread the joy of low power communication around.  I had obtained a Xiegu G106 QRP transceiver at a substantial discount, so I thought I’d … Continue reading →

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Resurrecting an Old Friend

Posted on April 15, 2026 by robert

My success with the KX3 activation a few days ago made me dust off an Elecraft K1 transceiver that I built a decade ago as a kit.  The K1 is a 5 watt CW QRP transceiver, and came in a … Continue reading →

Posted in K1, QRP | Leave a comment

Hunting for Pebbles

Posted on April 13, 2026 by robert

A number of years back, my club had a built night that centered around an inexpensive 40m QRP rig called the Pixie.  It’s one redeeming value was it was CHEAP (< $10), so new hams wouldn’t be too bummed out … Continue reading →

Posted in HF, Pebble, Pixie, POTA, QRP | Leave a comment

More exciting than Bouvet? K4SWL QRP POTA!

Posted on March 6, 2026 by robert

By now it should be obvious that I’m somewhat obsessed with POTA. When the weather or health doesn’t allow me to get outside, I hunt, or listen to podcasts and read posts from activators. I first ran across Thomas K4SWL … Continue reading →

Posted in Activation, KH1, Portable, POTA, QRP, QRPer | Leave a comment

Technicians on 10-meter FT-8

Posted on August 20, 2025 by robert

Last month I gave a presentation to my club about getting Technicians onto HF using FT8 – My reason for going that approach is that their only HF allocation is on the 10-meter band, and investing in a modern radio … Continue reading →

Posted in 10-Meters, FT8, QMX+, QRP | Leave a comment

QRP Labs QMX+ Received

Posted on December 8, 2024 by robert

I’ve been very impressed with the evolution of QRP Labs and their fine single and multi-band QRP rigs.  I’ve built many of them.  Their latest venture is the QMX+, which is a 160m to 6m CW and Digital radio (they … Continue reading →

Posted in CW, Digital Mode, QMX+, QRP, QRP Labs | Leave a comment

First FT8 QSOs with QRPLabs QMX Transceiver

Posted on August 11, 2024 by robert

One of my goals for 2024 was an electronics “Wildcard” where I would finish my QDX transceiver kit or some other ham related project.  Today I will mark this one complete, as I finally got my QRPLabs QMX Multimode Transceiver … Continue reading →

Posted in FT8, QMX, QRP, QRP Labs | 1 Comment