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To Use /QRP or not to use /QRP on Low Power Ham Radio Calls

 I mentioned the CWops scholarship yesterday beacuse I was looking at their site for an entirely different reason. The (seemingly?) old saw of whether or not to call /QRP as in KD0FNR/QRP had come up again in a ham radio forum. This time, the converstation on GQRP revolved around whether or not the /QRP designator should be removed from RBN calls. Someone remarked that /QRP might already be filtered on the RBN. I tired this morning wiwth Project TouCans. /QRP is still very much a thing on the RBN.


I'm trying to understand what all the fuss is about. So, if you have clarifying remarks, or even an opinion, please comment! 

Here's what I've got so far:

The people that feel you shouldn't do it feel very strongly that you shouldn't do that. Also, the people that feel very strongly about it seem to only mention it in regards to DX pileups.My fifteen minutes of internet ham radio research led to a SOTA forum post where some (one?) ops revealed they would never respond to callsigns appended with /QRP, while other people seemed not to care one way or another. I've seen concern that logging programs would have a disconnect over /QRP being remembered or forgotten by either station. I generally don't use logging programs, so I don't know??? I found a post on qrper.com about adding /QRP to your SSB calls. Interesting post, as always, but not quite the same thing.

My main usage of /QRP seems to fall outside what anyone is talking about, so I thought I'd write it down here. In my experience, during a contest where you're a sought after entity, the California QSO party for example, very kind, and very beefy QRO stations will carve a nook for QRP stations to hang out in if they're aware of them. In the case of Project TouCans, this made all the difference because on top of everything else, the rig is rock locked. It can't move to a less densely populated spot. But! I called CQ KD0FNR/QRP and wound up with a little slot to transmit in:


SDR waterfall showing KD0FNR on Project TouCans' signal with just enough room between two QRO sigs
Project TouCans signal just fitting between two QRO sigs
Second example of SDR waterfall showing KD0FNR on Project TouCans' signal with just enough room between two QRO sigs
Another example: Project TouCans signal just fitting between two QRO sigs

Everything worked briliantly. I wound up being 4th place in the QRP single op division with a rock locked rig! I didn't expect that to happen at all.

So, I don't know. I don't try to break through DX pileups on most days becuase it's not my thing, they'd have to come to me, and as some folks on the forums  pointed out: QRP. But /QRP sure was handy in getting a little room to work. Also, the other ops were incredibly kind! Ham radio's really nice.





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