The Case for Morse Code

If you’re into QRP, I want to encourage you to consider learning morse code. While you can make plenty of contacts with voice or digital, it’s hard to beat the “cw” (continuous wave) mode for efficiency.

With voice, everything you say is stretched out and occupies about 3 kHz of bandwidth. With morse code, that energy is compressed/condensed into a sliver of the bandwidth, concentrating the energy like a laser pointer!

Portable with the OHR 100A – 1st Contact

In this video, I show you one of my favorite places to work portable on Sunday mornings.  (It’s a business park a couple of miles from my house and nobody’s working there on Sunday mornings.)

I made a few contacts (one shown in the video) before I rode my bike home to watch football.

I finish the video by making an argument for the Elecraft KX1 vs. the OHR 100A. To me, an internal keyer is a necessity in a CW-only QRP radio.  That option pushes the OHR 100A up to $220.  For $80 more, the Elecraft KX1 is a more capable, modern radio with a digital display – and it has upgrade options that aren’t available for the OHR 100A… like two additional bands (4 bands, total) and an internal antenna tuner.

OHR 100A QRP Radio Build – Final Thoughts

I finished building the 40 meter version of the Oak Hills Research 100A QRP transceiver.  I also added the internal keyer.

In this video, I share my final thoughts about the build and the radio.

Summary:  It’s a great radio and I encourage you to build one.  The documentation could use some tweaking to make it easier to understand a few of the more confusing steps.  However, I built it without help and it worked right out of the gate.  If I can do it, you can do it!