USA-CA QRP

CQ Magazine sponsors an award for amateurs that work all the US counties. Over a thousand hams have achieve this coveted award. Only four hams have ever worked all the US counties using five watts or less for every QSO. Each has a unique story and each did it in a different manner.

The USA-CA QRP Honor Roll

Art Labahn was the first ham to complete USA-CA all QRP. At the time his call was WB0GRN. Later he changed his call to WD7N. He received USA-CA 349 in 1981. As he worked the counties he traveled most of the time so many of the QSOs were from the mobile. The story it that he did it all mobile to mobile using a Ten-Tec Argonaut. He traveled a lot on business from coast to coast and he traveled with his wife in a mobile home as he worked the counties. Art is now a silent key.

It was twenty two years before another ham repeated the feat of working all the counties QRP. Kyle, WA4PGM began his quest for USA-CA all QRP before he finished working all of the counties for his basic USA-CA award. He started his quest just a year after Art had finished his on August 4, 1982 with a QSO with N9DEH in LaGrange, IN. He received his basic USA-CA award number 470 on March 31, 1984. He then continued to work the counties QRP. The effort came to fruition on March 11, 2003 when he completed a QRP with a QSO with N4QVM in Davie County, NC. After twenty one years his quest for USA-CA quest had come to an end. Kyle worked the counties any way he could get them - SSB, CW, state QSO parties. He even worked them QRP from his motorcycle.

USA-CA all CW was completed just two months later by Larry, WD3P. Larry began his quest with a 10 mile QSO at 7 mWatts with WK3I on March 26, 1997 and completed it six years later on October 2, 2003 by working Bob, N4BP/M, in Eureka, NV. Bob had spent three days driving around the Northwest to give Larry his final four counties. He traveled all the way from Boundary County, ID on the Canadian boarder down to Eureka, NV for the final QSO. Larry made many of his QSOs on homebrew rigs that he built himself. His primary rigs were a Wilderness Sierra, an Elecraft K2 and an Elecraft K1. He used nothing more than simple dipoles for his most of his contacts. When not using his dipoles he was running QRP from the mobile. He did not stick with the QRP gallon of 5 watts, but rather his favorite a power level was 500 mWatts. By the time he finished the counties he had worked over 2,500 counties at half a watt or less. The average power he used to work a county during his quest was 1.08 watts.

The fourth person to complete working all the counties QRP was Don, K5AAR. He completed the task in October 2004 and received his award from CQ Magazine on November 2, 2004 endorsed all QRP-CW. Don's unique contribution was that he completed the task using nothing more than homebrew rigs. These were not rigs built from kit, but rather rigs the he built himself from scratch.

There are currently several other hams working the US counties QRP. The following is a list of those I am aware of and a count of the number of counties they have worked QRP.

Status of those working on USA-CA all QRP

Updates? Additions? e-mail me at wd3p@arrl.net

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