[Elecraft] Signing "/QRP"

[Stephen W. Kercel]

Ken and list:

Generally speaking, if I hear a station calling CQ with /QRP, I'll 
answer with /QRP. Particularly on domestic QSOs, I'm more interested 
in working other QRP stations than high powered stations. Thus, when 
I hear "/QRP" I do not hear it as "please take pity," but rather as 
"here's an interesting QSO in the offing."

It is usually not a good idea to sign "/QRP" in contests or DX 
pileups; in those circumstances, the station being called by multiple 
callers answers the first call he/she makes sense of; either the 
loudest or the shortest. Anyway, contest action moves too fast to 
allow for unnecessary information.

As for legality, for FCC licensed stations, signing "/QRP" is 
perfectly legal. FCC Regs 97.119(c) allows for "self-assigned 
indicators." There is an interesting gotcha to the rule. The last 
sentence of the regulation says "No self-assigned may conflict with 
any other indicator specified by the FCC rules, or with any prefix 
assigned to another country." Q signals, including QRP, pose no such 
conflict. However, as W3BE points out, other popular "self-assigned 
indicators" are illegal, particularly "/M," commonly used by mobile 
stations, a prefix assigned to the UK, and "/R" commonly used by 
repeaters, a prefix assigned to Russia, and used for special ham 
callsigns for Russian WW2 veterans.

73,

Steve Kercel
AA4AK





At 10:05 AM 6/11/2007, Ken Kopp wrote:
>Signing "/QRP" can be viewed as "please take pitty on me" thing.
>
>73! Ken Kopp - K0PP
>k0pp at arrl.net
>
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