20:25 utc: tried calling on 10.123, no luck. Will listen on 10.123 for a while.

I tried calling Gil on 10118 and 10123 but no luck.

Your set up sounds good. The FT-817/818 must surely be the "Swiss Army knife" of ham radios?

It is maybe also worth remembering that we are around the bottom of the sunspot cycle. Over the next few years, as HF propagation improves, it should get easier to make QRP contacts.

40m is a good choice. As well as being popular, even in our sunspot minimum you are pretty much guaranteed to hear activity anytime of day or night. You get a lot of slower CW around the 7030KHz QRP frequency.

I think the QCX is a great transciever. I have built two and use both regularly.

You can't go wrong with a doublet. It has been a favourite multiband antenna for many decades for good reason. It's not resonant but (assuming it is designed/built correctly) it is very efficient.

I haven't tried the NorCal idea of using computer ribbon cable. However, I did make a QRP/P doublet with radiators each 5m long. For the feeder, I cut up a large plastic milk container into rectangular strips about 15mm by 30mm. On each strip I made a hole near each corner and fed thin multistrand wire through the holes so that they acted as spacers. I guesstimated the impedance of this homebrew ladder line was a few hundred ohms (exact value is not critical).

The ladder line is about 10m long and is very light and flexible compared to commercial window line.

I used it with a GQRP "Sudden" ATU which has balanced and unbalanced outputs. The antenna worked OK on 80m to 20m. In fact, I recall at least one SSB contact on 80m running just 5W.

I reckon this is a good prepper antenna as it works and is easy to make? All you need is some wire and an empty milk carton.

Has anyone managed to work Gil or heard him /MM?

Searched on DX cluster but no spots.