It wasn’t the longest contact ever but I did manage Washington state from San Diego last weekend. running 2 watts into a WRC antenna from the QRP-Labs QDX.
Last weekend I worked Japan, New Zealand and Indonesia from our club station in McDade, TX on FT4. I don’t recall the distance but it’s up there. Of course, the antenna was at 80ft and it was 100W.
I still need to get proficient with morse code. I was trending toward that goal last year, but deviated off the path.
Approximately 4,901 miles on 20m from Texas to Barbacena, Brazil, using the FT-891 and ATAS-120 antenna mobile in a Jeep Wrangler.
Easter Island from Ireland, 100w CW on 20m.
Still haven’t gotten into VK or ZL yet though
I think my longest distance is 17,000 km (10,500 miles) between QRA and FK8HM in New Caledonia.
It was in FT8 with 80 watts.
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I managed 10,953 miles, Illinois to to Australia on ft8. An ocfd dipole.
I was with someone when he heard the echo of himself coming around the long path.
That’s super cool. Some day I hope to hear that.
I think mine is Japan from Denver. I’ve done it a couple times but only with FT8. Still want a CW contact there!
I’m HOA locked in my house but during a SOTA activation I got both coasts (sorta) from the Rockies with 5watts
That’s cool, I am HOA locked as well. So every day is field day for me. :) Kind of neat how far one can get with FT8 and low power.
I really want a super small laptop or touchpad I can SOTA with to FT8 when I hike.
Check out the microsoft surface tab. With Linux they are wonderful, but if you are a windows user they are pretty awesome there too.