It’s not always the chaser station that saves the day for low-power contacts.
Back in Feb 2017, I was on VE6/RA-031 having a fabulous day, working Europe, Alaska, New Zealand and all across North America on 20m SSB. I was using 30 watts to an inverted V dipole.
Towards the end of the session, I was contacted by KM6BHG in California. He was running 3 watts but had a great signal into Alberta. We got chatting and he asked if he could reduce power, so down he went, 1 watt, 0.5 watts and finally to 0.1 watts. The contact was getting scratchy at my end, but I could still make him out.
It can’t be often that the activator is running 300 x as much power as the chaser!
Ian VE6IXD