"Leroy" wrote in message
news
I was under the impression that CW would get through under worse
conditions and/or with lower power requirements than other modes.

Various digital modes do better under low SNR conditions than CW, but they do
require a computer at both ends to perform the encoding and decoding -- some
people don't like that fact, that you seemingly need "more equipment" to work
such modes than you do with CW. It's a bit of a red herring, however, in that
these days pretty much every single amateur radio being sold commercially has
a processor (computer) in it anyway, and while some are strictly for "control"
(not modulation/demodulation), the percentage that does have raw number
crunching power increases every day, and within a decade it's a fair bet that
over 90% of all commerical amateur radios will use DSP techniques for
modulation and demodulation. (Cell phone went to DSPs somewhere between 5-10
years ago now...)

Does no one run "flea power" anymore?

Absolutely they do, and it's a really cool part of the hobby... but for every
100 amateurs, I would guess that the number running QRP on a regular basis is
about 1.

---Joel