I received my Ham Radio license VE3YRG Dec 2019 and choose to operate low power digital radio. I live in Eastern Canada and just made my longest contact last Sunday night. I made contact with Southern Australia with less than 5 watts. Some days I think I would make more contacts with more power, but really enjoy working with less than 5 watts. There are a lot of operators that run 100 watts or up to 1500 Watts. Need special class of license to run 1500 Watts. A lot of members of my local radio club practice Emergency communications drills.