![]() Maybe my signal just wasn’t making the trip. I laid the blame for my lack of portable QRP QSOs on poor propagation. And a QRP rig sips battery power so slowly that some can be powered all day on a 9-volt alkaline battery. Perhaps the greatest advantage is that an entire station can be stuffed into a couple of pockets – antenna and all. QRP certainly has an appeal for those of us who like to operate in the great outdoors. There are several online organizations dedicated to it. So shouldn’t 100 watts of SSB be considered QRP? There is a mathematical proof but I won’t repeat it here. Just what is so magical about an output power of 5 watts? Why not 1 watt, 3 watts, or 20 watts? It has often been said that 5 watts of CW is equivalent to 100 watts of SSB. Maybe the odd QSO here and there, but most often I came home with nothing but a few RBN spots after multiple CQ calls. My forays out into the Big Blue Sky Shack became a series of disappointments. Then along came the dark, gloomy depths of the solar cycle minimum. I even took my “Portable QRP Operation” show-and-tell out on the road for presentation at ham clubs in my area. Why I Quit QRP (and maybe shouldn’t have)įor many years I was a dedicated QRP operator. Many thanks to John (VA3KOT) who shares the following guest post which was originally published on his Ham Radio Outside the Box blog: ![]()
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