[Elecraft] who does the work in QRP?

[Tom Althoff]

The same skills you use when running QRP also work when running
QRO...listening to where the DX station is listening and transmitting WHEN
he is listening is the best way to work him.

You compare brute force QRO to carfefully timed QRP and then say QRP is
better.   You can use the same careful timing and listening when running
QRO.

So when you are operating with the same skill level in transmit the only
difference is how well the OTHER guy can copy you...how patient he is.
Many stations won't want to slow down their QSO rate in a contest to even
try more than once to get your call and will just go back to CQ'ing.

The fact is QRP IS fun.   It IS challenging.   But I put the same effort in
my operating regardless of my power.   Its the OTHER guy who is listening to
me through S9 static crashes and having his patience tested.   I don't work
any harder (unless you count repeating my callsign more times than usual.).

The power knob on my K2 is a time machine.    At 1W it takes me longer to
work someone in a contest or a DX pileup than when I have it turned up to
1500W.  My skills don't change.

I like to think I'm a "good" operator.   By that I mean I'm courteous to
others....When the DX calls for the W2 I don't send K2TA.   When I hear the
DX working a station every 10 seconds I darn well know it's a waste of time
to send my call for longer than that time.   But I don't kid myself into
thinking that because I work a new country while running 5W that it is
because of my great skills.   I give 95% of the credit to the guy on the
other end.

But that's just my perspective.  I'm sure there are people who pat
themselves on the back for working a DX station with QRP by sending their
callsign 50 times in a row without ever pausing to listen for the DX so that
sooner or later when the pileup died down he was the last man standing in
the clear.

I just hope he stays QRP so I don't have to be QRM'd by him in the pileups.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "KT5X" kt5x at cybermesa.com
To: <elecraft at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, December 26, 2006 2:31 PM
Subject: [Elecraft] who does the work in QRP?


> QRP...the real skills are at the other end.
< boy...am I asking for trouble with THAT line!>  LOL.

Yes and no...  Here's the thing

In a ragchew or traffic handling, that may be true when the QRP signal is
weak.

But this is NOT the case in DX'ing, as in, get your call across to work a
DX-pedition or the like.  Yes, the guy on the other end has to copy a
relatively weaker signal,

but all the skill of slipping your weak signal through the cracks of a
pile-up, or through the rise and fall of ionospheric waves rests with the
QRP operator, make no mistake.

When I am DXing QRP, I listen, listen, listen, listen, and rarely transmit.
When I actually transmit, my success level, QSO's per call, is far higher
than when QRO when my tendency is throw my signal at it 'cause I know it is
getting there.

QRP on 160 meters (from New Mexico):  It took me 20 minutes to work R1FJT,
Franz Josephland, QRO.  It took another forty-five, but just ONE call, to
work him QRP, five watts, with our club call.  What a great night.  I was
watching him on the grayline chart.  He was in his grayline and stayed there
for 90 minutes that night.

that's the thrill and skill of QRP.

72,  Fred KT5X (W5YA/qrp)
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