How far does 1mW go ?

Do you remember playing as a kid with the short range 49 MHz walkie-talkies ?

49 MHz Walkie – Talkies

We used to play with these often as a kid, and the range was shorter than your voice ! With an output between 5 and 50 mW these could often struggle to communicate more than a few meters.

Still the fun we had trying to extend the range.

The Elad FDM-DUO has a 0 dBm o/p on the rear that will provide 1mW out from 100 khz to 156 MHz

The Elad uses a SMA female connector on its rear, and using a ebay special connector I routed this into my ATU and doublet antenna matched for 7 MHz. I wanted to run WSPR at 1mW and see what decodes I could achieve.

Over the course of the next couple of days I ran the Elad both at night and during the day. It was hard to achieve any decodes at night, but in the day I was decoded on many occasions from stations in the range of 50 to 770 KM.

Best DX was 2 spots by Denmark based station 5P1B at 770 KM.

The following statistics provided by WSPR.net database

 Stations who decoded M0TAZ v Signal @ 1mW

Stations who decoded M0TAZ v Distance @ 1mW

You can download the free WSPR software provided by K1JT online. WSPR reports are uploaded and databased online.

73 Dave M0TAZ