Least power ever on an HF activation

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

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0.5W for me (assuming my FT-817 lowest power setting is accurate). Perhaps, just to be fair, antenna gain should be considered and lowest ERP could be considered? The 0.5W was into a dipole. So, reckon ERP would have been - 3dBW. This assumes dipole antenna gain of 0dBd.

I hope the gent powering his equipment off the BBC transmitter had paid his TV Licence :slight_smile: