CQ WPX SSB

On Saturday I made 7 QSO's in the CQ WPX SSB.
I wondered if I could make QSO's in phone with my crippled inverted V.
Last year the top broke.
I temporarily repaired the antenna, but one wire lays flat on the roof.
In the last months, I noticed that I need more power than before in CW contest QSO's.
Also I had to rediscover the "tuner settings" for each band, after the antenna had changed.

SSB also works
Using SSB in stead of CW gives a lot more QRM in the house.
Sometime I want to hold the microphone to my ear, to listen. hi
Saturday afternoon I had one hour to operate, in which I made 5 QSO's on 21 MHz with
LZ, IS0, I and EU.    I responded to signals that were S+.

Tuning
In the evening I went on, but could not be heard. The in coming signals were S+, thus strong enough, but my QRP signal could not be heard. After not being heard by 3 different very loud stations I checked my power.
After tuning with CW, as I always do, I had forgotten to switch back to SSB, so I had no power at all.
After that I made two additional QSO's. Then I had to QRT, since the XYL went to bed.

Your signal is weak
On Sunday morning I easily made 5 QSO's on 7 MHz over short distances with DL, ON , PA and G.
Many operators told me that my signal was weak. But I have no tower, no Yagi, a less than perfect Inverted Vee and QRP and still managed to make QSO's, somtimes pushing the operating pratice to the limit at both ends.
Using QRP and a simple antenna, shows that Progation is more important than the Antenna. hi.