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I don't do contests, but I find them to be a pretty great way of seeing how my aerials perform on RX.

I keep 3 countries lists. One for SWL, the second worked on CB, the last worked on ham bands.

I have a busy weekend, but I should be able to get a couple of hours listening in.

Fred said . . . . I don't do contests, but I find them to be a pretty great way of seeing how my aerials perform on RX.
I keep 3 countries lists. One for SWL, the second worked on CB, the last worked on ham bands.
I have a busy weekend, but I should be able to get a couple of hours listening in.

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There should be quite a bit of activity from Indonesia (zone 28) as they have approximately 500,000 licensed hams. Maybe your CB radio can make it to 28 mhz the 10 meter ham band.

My Anytone 6666 CB covers 10 happily with around 60 watts.

My Yeasu 818 portable covers all our bands, as does my Yaesu 891, the latter was opened to 11.

My cheap and nasty Chinese uSDX covers the lot, but that's as cheap as it is nasty so I don't really use it. It manages 6 watts on 40, but only 1 watt on 10.

My G0 allows all bands, but my YD is more limited- Effectively 10 and 40 because of aerial size and my limited interest in digital. modes.

I think the Anytone will end up left in the car as mobile HF for when I can't be bothered taking a better radio.

My next project is a telescopic 2 ele for 10, so that should give me a nice bit of metal for my radio to throw RF through

The cq world wide dx phone contest is this weekend. Exchange is power & zone. The Philippines is zone 27.
The Philippines is a rare multiplier so you will be in great demand. Call CQ Contest and sit back and listen to the world calling you. - @Enzyte Bob

Thanks for the reminder. For sure we will be making contacts this weekend; I wish our local club would be more active in reminding us of important HF contests but they really focus more on VHF/UHF and DMR. I just do it for the contacts and the fun and not the points. Local Filipino hams who enter these contests always seem to do quite well I believe for the reason you mentioned. My station here is VHF and I can do 40m-10m but tuning 10m on my 1/2 G5RV antenna at my Valencia station does not cover the full band and the G5RV is not very efficient, but, on 12, 15, 17, 20, 30 and 40 it does pretty well for a wire. Again, thanks for the notice. If I were in Siquijor this weekend we would do much better with the full size G5RV and location near the beach.

@danfinn

Correction. My stations here in Valencia and Siquijor are HF and VHF. DU7SJF.

My Anytone 6666 CB covers 10 happily with around 60 watts.My Yeasu 818 portable covers all our bands, as does my Yaesu 891, the latter was opened to 11.My cheap and nasty Chinese uSDX covers the lot, but that's as cheap as it is nasty so I don't really use it. It manages 6 watts on 40, but only 1 watt on 10.My G0 allows all bands, but my YD is more limited- Effectively 10 and 40 because of aerial size and my limited interest in digital. modes. - @Fred

I never really focused much on QRP here but I do notice I can log into our daily 40m PARA net using 10W and get signal reports about 2 S-units lower than my 100W reports. But that is local NVISC communications, not DX. I simply use all the power I can on HF for DX  because I need it for SSB to California/US West Coast stations on  40m and 20m. With CW, I have no problem with 10W to the US West Coast but with SSB for other frequencies I need 100 watts. In the US 100w is called "barefoot" lol, almost QRP. Actually I have an AL80B Ameritron linear from 1992 which I had to repair here myself (nobody here can repair them) but now an electrolytic gave up the ghost and I won't bother repairing anymore. 100W is perfect for Philippines DX. Having said that, if or when I ever get back on 10m with a decent modified CB vertical antenna,  I think 10W will do fine.

I have  a rather nice QRP case.

The radio is an 818

It has a switch mode PSU

I carry two tuners, one for EFHW, the other for balanced and unbalanced feeds.

Tucked into the lid I have a wire for 10 and another for 40. The cheap fishing pole look after verticals, but I attached a bag to another wire. I add a few stones to make an easy throw into the nearest tree.

For 10 meters:

For those interested in a cheap, fast construction, low swr & broadside gain of approximately 3.5 db, build a half square antenna.

It's essentially phased verticals fed at the top so no radials required.

Each vertical is 9 feet tall, can be constructed with wire taped to 10 feet tall bamboo poles.

The poles are spaced at 17 feet, connected to each other at the top by a wire, this wire is your phasing line.

Fed by 52 ohm coax at the top of one vertical, if you don't have coax then use lamp cord.

The gain is broadside, with a low takeoff angle, good for dx.

A handy calculator

Efhw Antenna Calculator - Calculator Academy

A handy calculator Efhw Antenna Calculator - Calculator Academy - @Fred

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Efhw is a terrible choice for an antenna.

If anyone would like to design an antenna, download Eznec. The author has retired and after selling 10's of thousands of copies, it's now free.

I'm very limited on space so I use an EFHW for 10. it's a vertical telescopic mounted on a tripod. It takes a minute to set up and gives very nice results, but only if I use a counterpoise wire. It's rubbish without it.