This is inspiring. I’ve heard about things like FT8 and WSPR and have taken the first steps to get on track for a 10W license. Is it feasible to put together a simple transceiver to send short messages over 200km? I’d love to have an out of band way of staying in touch with my family that doesn’t rely on any one else’s infrastructure. The closest thing I’ve found are either RTL SDR hacks (receive only?) or the Elecraft kit ($900 for something way more Gucci than I think I deserve, given my amateur noob status!). For some reason I’m having trouble answering this question for myself, using internet searching!
I did US to Australia with a Raspberry Pi as the transmitter, a QRP labs filter for 10 Meters to clean up the signal, into an MFJ Tuner and then a random wire over the house and no other amplifiers. Like 100mw or less? WsprryPi essentially just turns the pin on an off really quickly to generate the signal. This was with an Amateur Extra license.
To be clear here, there is no such thing as an "10W" license. The FCC grants three types of licenses, each with increasing privileges. Any licensed person can operate at power levels up to 1500 watts for General and above, 200 watts for Novice/Technician. Operating at 10 Watts and below is a popular form of communicating called QRP. It does, however, still require a license.
You also need to have a licensed individual at the far end if you want to have two-way communications. If they're receive-only, then no license is required.
OfCom licenses sound similar, but with the bottom rung license (“Foundation License”) requiring low power operation (max 1W to 10W) while you learn the ropes.
