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Hi AZ.....
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I think practically anything you use on PSK31 is going to be QRP. You are going to want to dial back the power for several reason- primarily because you don't need it, you want a perfectly linear signal- no distortions, - the transmit duty cycle can over heat your transmitter in QRO.... and if the band is dead its dead.
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I am hardly the one to talk about ham radio digital. I just rediscover'd** it over the July 4th holiday. My father is an inveterate long wave fan, and after I sent him the remains of my foray on 2200 metre (my JUMA TX136) he called me saying I should give 136Khz another shot...
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"Try one of the digital modes, Lauri"
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And he referred to some of the JT modes he was using on long wave with success. As if my gift of that JUMA tranceiver was not to be out done, there was a FedX'd SignaLink digital interface awaiting me back home in my mountains.
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It was like... "Okay Dad, don't twist my arm or anything....
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So...the downloading Digipan and WSJT-X (for good measures... why not take a peek at this FT8 while we're at it?)-- that took maybe maybe 15 minutes. By the end of another 10, I was both impressed by, and bored with FT8. The number of stations was impressive, the DX (this was on 20 metre's) was amazing- but the content left me empty in a matter of minutes.
I have heard FT8 described as being as much fun as watching paint dry-- I know; that is Harsh- and if its any reader's "thing" I apologize... its just reminds me too much of automated beacons- where's the QSO's ?
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I was impress'd however- for where my home is, we are surrounded by awesome mountains- an RF venerable 'black hole"- Green Bank Observatory should be jealous of my "quiet zone." But there, under the noise was lots of (14 Mhz) amateur activity. Cool.... right up until the Drying Paint part.
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But PSK was a different story !... This mode, I soon learned, hardly over populates the ham bands, but I quickly found a station calling CQ from far out in the Pacific- I went back to him - and on my first go: Bingo ! ..... I was (digitally) hooked once again !....
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We had a real 20 minute chat- that's something with these sunspots and only 20 Watts to a vertical. I'm sort of embarrassed admitting to have taken all these years to try digital again, but I can sense it putting a lot of fun back into my hobby.
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For those (like I was) that are considering these modes, try downloading the software and running at least receive- your computer's sound card will handle it all. And any modern HF transceiver will work (I used my old IC 728.) Dial it back to 20-25 Watts- but like Wy said, the antenna is what will make all the difference.
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Lauri
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** I say 'rediscovering' the ham radio part, since I played in it in the earliest digital years. Since then my career had revolved around so much digital RF that mixing it into my hobby was killing my hobby..... though my true loves have always been my radars.... that's always been very digital ...