As you may have noticed in a previous post I'm a big fan of QRP operating.What is QRP? Well QRP is the Amateur Q Code for low power operating usually 5 watts or less, less than 1watt of power is usually designated QRP/p.It's easy to work stations using the usual transceiver power of 100 watts, or more in some cases some stations add external linear amplifiers and run into the 1000's of watts this is commonly called working QRO (yes another Q code ).
In my opinion QRP is much more challenging and satisfying than running loads of power, but that's just my personal opinion and I don't knock those that enjoy working QRO that's their choice as QRP is mine.
Thanks for reading the blog that's all for now ,more next time till then 73's es Good DX
In my opinion QRP is much more challenging and satisfying than running loads of power, but that's just my personal opinion and I don't knock those that enjoy working QRO that's their choice as QRP is mine.
As you see by the Certificate above I'm a member of the North American QRP CW Club a club that promotes my two favorite aspects of Ham Radio, QRP & CW (aka Morse Code) more information about them can be found on their website.
DOES QRP REALLY WORK?
According to Rich Arland, K7YHA (now K7SZ), in World Radio magazine (Feb. 1990, year 19, issue 89, pp. 46-47) the long-distance low power record is held by KL7YU and W7BVV using one micro-watt over a distance of 1,650 mile 10-meter path between Alaska and Oregon in 1970. This is the equivalent of 1.6 billion miles per watt.
Another fact to consider: NASA's deep space missions typically achieve mile-per-watt ratings of more than 500 million miles. One example was the 8-watt signal from Pioneer 10*. At a power level equal to that of a night light (or is that Knightlite?) the craft's signal traveled 6.8 billion miles (11 billion km) to earth for a rating of 850 million miles per watt, or about half of the KL7YU/W7BVV record.
* Launched March 2, 1972 from Cape Kennedy for a two-year mission to Jupiter. The probe is now more than twice the distance from the sun as Pluto, traveling at 28,000 mph in the general direction of the first magnitude star Aldebaran.
January 2, 2005 - New London, NC - Bill Tippett, W4ZV, of New London, NC correctly copied code word OMAHA (on CW) from the N2XE beacon transmitting with a peak carrier power of .0000406 watts at 3.5455 MHz on the 80 meter Amateur Radio band. Bill confirmed reception of the beacon at 2328Z, January 2, 2005. The precise distance between the two stations is 546.8 miles, establishing Bill's record reception distance at 13,467,980 miles per watt. Tippett used a Ten Tec Orion Transceiver with a 1000 foot Beverage antenna (named after Dr. Harold Beverage who invented it in the 1920s).
The N2XE beacon transmits from an Elecraft K1 (heavily attenuated) using an 80 meter off-center fed dipole, 45 feet AGL (above ground level). The beacon peak carrier output was measured using an Agilent 8563EC Spectrum Analyzer at 40.6 uW (40 millionths of a watt). The beacon transmits a unique code word each evening. Receiving stations are required to correctly copy the code word in their report. The word is published the following morning.
The N2XE Beacon Project was started in December, 2004 by (NAQCC member) Paul Stroud, AA4XX, Raleigh, NC and John Ceccherelli, N2XE, Wappingers Falls, NY with the goal of having a little fun and to go where no diminutive signal has gone before. Beacon times and frequencies are posted daily on the QRP-L reflector www.kkn.net/archives/html/QRP-L. Tests continued on 160, 80 and 40 meters through the end of February 2005.
One reason the NAQCC is a QRP CW club is because QRP and CW go together so well. CW takes up about 100Hz of spectrum whereas SSB uses about 2000Hz. The average power density for CW, given the above values, is 1 Watt/Hz and for SSB .05 Watts/Hz. So if we compare the two modes we could say that gain in using CW over SSB is Gain(dB)=10*log(1/.05) which is equal to 13dB What does this mean? It means that 5 Watts of CW is as efficient as 100 Watts of SSB. Just a little food for thought.
What is QRP? It is SKILL, NOT POWER, and yes, it really does work. Try it, you'll like it. Join the North American QRP CW Club - it's free - and our motto is: No dues, just DO!
Amateur Radio QRP Calling Frequencies
QRP is one of a set of quick-to-send symbols beginning with the letter Q, for Quick.
Originally QRP was sent in Morse Code to quickly communicate that a station was using Reduced Power. Over the many years since that time it has come to generally mean "very-low-power," rather than "reduced power." Of course, "reduced" and "very-low" are both relative descriptions. One person's concept of very-low-power may be relatively high-power to another. Even so, among Radio Amateurs, QRP now is generally understood to mean a CW transmitter with 5-watts or less RF power output or SSB transmitter with 10-watts or less RF peak-envelope-power output.
Calling Frequencies Commonly Used by
Very-Low-Power Amateur Radio Stations
Region Band Name Calling Frequency Mode
MF 160 Meters 1810 kHz CW
MF 160 Meters 1818 kHz CW
MF 160 Meters 1843 kHz SSB Europe
MF 160 Meters 1910 kHz LSB
HF 80 Meters 3560 kHz CW
HF 80 Meters 3690 kHz SSB Europe
HF 80 Meters 3710 kHz (Novice) CW
HF 80 Meters 3711 kHz (Novice) CW
HF 75 Meters 3985 kHz LSB
HF 40 Meters 7040 kHz CW
HF 40 Meters 7090 kHz SSB Europe
HF 40 Meters 7110 kHz (Novice) CW
HF 40 Meters 7286 kHz LSB
HF 30 Meters 10106 kHz CW
HF 30 Meters 10116 kHz CW
HF 20 Meters 14060 kHz CW
HF 20 Meters 14285 kHz USB
HF 17 Meters 18069 kHz CW
HF 17 Meters 18096 kHz CW
HF 17 Meters 18130 kHz USB
HF 15 Meters 21060 kHz CW
HF 15 Meters 21110 kHz (Novice) CW
HF 15 Meters 21285 kHz SSB Europe
HF 15 Meters 21385 kHz USB
HF 12 Meters 24906 kHz CW
HF 12 Meters 24956 kHz USB
HF 10 Meters 28060 kHz CW
HF 10 Meters 28110 kHz (Novice) CW
HF 10 Meters 28360 kHz SSB Europe
HF 10 Meters 28885 kHz USB
VHF 2 Meters 144060 kHz CW
VHF 2 Meters 144285 kHz SSB
Thanks go to S-Meter.Net for the above chart.
No comments:
Post a Comment