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b"What use is an F-call?\\n\\nRecently I had the opportunity to participate in a contest that was specifically set-up for QRP. That is, 5 Watts or less. There was an hour for digital modes, including Morse, but I don't yet speak that, so I sat tight for the second hour, for phone.\\n\\nThis particular contest was a single band only contest, 80m.\\n\\nWhen I planned for the contest, I set my watch wrong by an hour, so I almost didn't make it, but fortunately my XYL queried my delayed departure and I was out the door in the nick of time.\\n\\nI headed out to the beach, only to be confronted with S8 noise from the local housing estate, so I retreated rapidly back into the bush and found myself a lovely little nook where I could park the car without causing any disruption and start twiddling the dial.\\n\\nI immediately learned that my vertical was very, very narrow in bandwidth, that is, there was a limited range of frequencies I could use which curtailed the activities somewhat.\\n\\nUndeterred I hunted up and down the workable range, heard lots of stations and even made one contact. I almost tickled the eardrum of a station on the other side of the country, but he was being bombarded by other noise makers, so that didn't eventuate.\\n\\nI got my ear drums belted by some locals who hadn't heard that it was a QRP contest, but all in all, there was lots of fun to be had.\\n\\nMy take home was that I should prepare better. I should have scouted a location earlier, used a more suitable antenna and considered if the locals would be pulling out of a side-road, shining their headlights on me parked in the bush on a continuous rotation.\\n\\nThe contest was easy to do, reminded me that prior planning prevents piss poor performance and that I should really think about a better way to log contacts on the road in a contest situation.\\n\\nSo, every outing is a learning opportunity. If you don't think back about the experience, how do you go about learning from it?\\n\\nI'm Onno VK6FLAB"