{"id":328,"date":"2026-04-02T20:48:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=328"},"modified":"2026-04-06T20:52:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T19:52:44","slug":"1000km-on-just-1-watt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/2026\/04\/02\/1000km-on-just-1-watt\/","title":{"rendered":"1000Km On Just 1 Watt!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’ve been interested in QRP and home building for a while but lack the time to do it justice. Earlier in the year I built a QMX+ but it took me a full month due to various other distractions, work, family etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought for my next project I would aim for something that would be rewarding and useful but that I could complete in a single evening. After a bit of research I came across the Kanga Rooster<\/a>. A 1 watt simple single frequency chrystal based CW transceiver that can be assembled quickly with basic tools. I especially like the small form factor – about the size of packet of cigarettes for those of a certain age or a deck of cards, bar of soap etc for those who didn’t grow up in the age of smoking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I bought mine from the manufacturers (M0BMN – Paul Web) eBay page which you can find here<\/a>. It arrived quickly enough and took about an hour to construct. I also bought a ‘flat pack’ CW key from Paul as well – seriously, where can you buy a straight key for less that \u00a310 that actually does the job!?! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how did it work out, well after an hour of work assembling my key and transceiver I was set up on 14.060Mhz and ready to go. I heard a station in Italy calling CQ and decided to give it a bash and sure enough I was into my first CW QSO on the Rooster, almost 1000Km on 1 watt of power with a home made transformer and morse key, possibly the most rewarding contact I’ve ever made on the amateur radio bands!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next steps – find a suitable battery pack, build a half wave end fed and head out for some CW POTA! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been interested in QRP and home building for a while but lack the time to do it justice. Earlier in the year I built a QMX+ but it took me a full month due to various other distractions, work, family etc. I thought for my next project I would aim for something that would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":334,"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions\/334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willwoodman.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}