Just had my first QCX QSO as well!
Actually, was my first QSO in 20+ years, since 31 Dec 1998!? Had a brief (~10 min) CW chat with N4KER, Charles in Woodstock, VA.? Really had to knock some cobwebs off my CW... probably copied less than 50% myself, but his signal through a 3el yagi was super strong, and the QCX Morse decoder did a great job helping me fill in the blanks.? I was running portable in a local wildlife refuge from my car's accessory outlet (with the motor off, learned my lesson on noise with that one!), with an EFHW strung up over a tree (effectively, a 1/2 wave vertical the way I had it setup).? I used the QRP Guys iambic paddle and QRP Guys EFHW tuner.? (My QCX is also built into the QRP Guys-designed PCB enclosure... I may submit some photos to the builders' gallery.)
This was super exciting for me, and really helped to validate to me that my construction was OK... I'd done a little bit of receiving, and was fairly confident that was working fine, but hadn't managed to contact anyone yet.
Next step, getting an antenna setup at home... really would like to be able to just "head down to the shack" rather than jumping through hoops to setup my portable antenna any time I want to use it.? Anyhow, was pretty awesome for me.? Thanks, Hans, for a great kit!
Regards,
Rob KC4UPR
