The reality of operating the FT8 digital mode on 5 Watts TX power

Hi there, I've been operating with the narrow band FT8 digital mode for a couple of weeks now. I keep hearing that you can 'work the world' on a few Watts. That's not really true - well not thus far with my set-up. My Elad puts out a maxium TX power of 5 Watts, so my ERP is a bit less than that. Some would argue that my SE-X80 wideband vertical antenna is a bit of a compromise, but it's the sort of antenna that those of use with limited space have to work with. What's interesting is that my signal is being decoded all over the world, but it's a very different story in terms of making QSOs. This video tells the story, so far.

Thanks for watching.