[CQ-Contest] History of Low Power Category

[Charles Harpole]

Today, it makes sense to make everyone honest by calling LOW power 200 pots
of wire, ooooh watts of power.

The 100 w was due to transceivers of the day the rule adopted.  Time has
marched on to 200 w.

>From Thailand, I can report that the extra 100 watts makes much better
difference that the physics textbooks would indicate, but going on up to
even 500w does not show nearly the boost in results, I hear. 73 Charly​

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 6:38 PM, Randy Thompson K5ZD <k5zd at charter.net>
wrote:

> I was recently asked why the CQ Contests use 100W as the limit for low
> power
> and the ARRL Contests use 150W.  I had not really thought about this much
> and wonder if anyone can explain how the limits were chosen.
>
>
>
> The CQWW introduced a low power category in the writeup for the 1990 CQ WW
> SSB Contest (and the rules for 1991).  It  is assumed that 100W was chosen
> because it was easily accomplished by most barefoot transceivers or radios
> of the time.
>
>
>
> Can anyone explain the history of the ARRL selection of 150W?  The slightly
> higher power level can be reached by some radios, but it also encourages
> "low power" stations to run an amplifier to gain that extra db between 100W
> and 150W.
>
>
>
> It would be nice if all contests used the same low power limit.  Not
> because
> one limit is more right than another, but so there would be less confusion.
> Last year there was one entrant that entered CQWW as low power and then
> realized they had exceeded 100W (I think they ran 110W or 120W).  They
> asked
> to have their entry reclassified to high power.  Admirable integrity, but
> unfortunately caused by the confusion between ARRL and CQ category limits.
>
>
>
> Randy, K5ZD
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Charly, HS0ZCW