Topband: QRP on 160?

[Jim Brown]

On 7/1/2024 5:19 PM, GEORGE WALLNER wrote:
> The trick is to wait until conditions are right. Otherwise, you will be 
> wasting your time.

Yes, QRP is excellent at teaching us about propagation!

 > In a contest however, I think QRP is a bit unfair to the other guy.

I don't. Far too many hams concentrate on being loud and pay little 
attention to hearing well. I consider ham radio to be about more than 
operating -- it's also about station-building. And one reason I run QRP 
in 160M contests is that far too many stations are CQ machines, with 
their only RX antenna (if they have one) pointed to EU. If they want my 
QSO, they've got to work for it by hearing well!

For the last several days, a ham from MI has been activating a rare grid 
on 6M in NE NV. He's got a great station, but since he's doing it from a 
trailer park, he can't hear a big station running legal limit, let alone 
the ordinary ones.

There's also a set of operating skills one must learn if you're a little 
pistol or QRP. One of them is to never repeat anything the other station 
has copied correctly. Another is to know how to give repeats 
efficiently. At 83, I have a lousy fist, so I have F-keys programmed for 
every element of the exchange that might need a repeat. When I know I'm 
weak at the other end, I'll keep sending the fill until the other 
station gets it. (I'm always full QSK).

W6JTI and I just made more than 800 Qs with a single-transmitter QRP FD 
entry last weekend. Both of us are experienced QRP ops.

73, Jim K9YC