www.qrp4fun.de Operation mode - not only with a QRP station

It is not possible to achieve the 5BDXCC with a matched wet tying lacing and an 1 mW transmitter. It is possible to achieve with some watts each point of the earth. It believes calmly! Perhaps my following tips help you to improve your operation mode. Because it does not only lie at the used station. Some tips are references to the operation mode CW, but it can be passed just as also to SSB or the digital modes.
 
Who can select, should select always the band with the highest usable frequency. It is an enormous difference to be with 5 W on air an the 80 m band or with the same output power on the 10 m band - first is usually toilsome and on an open 10 m band you can reach QSO's with all continents within a short time.
 
On the weekends often contests organized. That may make you happy or not. However the stations have straight at the end of the contest better ears and will answer you. In order to reach the same station in a normal QSO, one make an effort to do the same one. But do not hope for more than a fast exchange of the rapport. It is a contest. Even if you should not like the contests for some hours, so changes to the WARC bands. There are stations during this time, which also rather go to the turmoil out of the way. And sometimes there is a rare bird under it.
 
Fundamentally only you should calling CQ if the frequency is really free! It always worked with me, the apparently free frequency somewhat longer to hear (approx. 1 to 2 minutes). Sometimes you does not hear a station due to the dead zone or other conditions. Then the second station mostly returns after a QSO passage after this time. Nevertheless it can happen that one is displaced by an not occupied frequency during the CQ call, because not everything is take up this rule or don't hear the quiet signal. Also it can be frustrating to call CQ with a QRP station somewhere on the band. Exceptions for it are the proximity of the QRP frequencies.
 
To calling CQ for 1 minute promises more success than an endless set of many minutes. A CQ call according to the text

CQ CQ CQ DE DK3RED DK3RED
CQ CQ CQ DE DK3RED DK3RED K

is in most cases sufficient. Do not be subject to the temptation to betray in the CQ call that you uses a QRP station! Switch to receipt and observe 5 seconds the frequency. In the hearing time use the RIT for searching the surrounding range, not however the VFO knob. Otherwise somebody, who waits perhaps only for the next passage, does not find you any more.
 
If you found a QSO partner, the talk should be arranged also varied. The first passage should containe the honest rapport, the location and the name.

... DE DK3RED =
GD DR OP =
RST 349 349 QTH NR BERLIN NR BERLIN NAME INGO INGO =
HR HOMEMADE STN =
HW? =
... DE DK3RED KN

A rapport, which does not correspond the real situation, will not make the QSO more interesting or longer - rather the opposite is the case. With a real rapport your interlocutor recognizes, that it is not any old QSO. With the additional information concerning my station I already often formed a bridge to the next passage. Apart from rapport, location and the name of the operator you are gotten in the next passage so perhaps also the request for more information about your station equipment. How you see, I did not betray yet that I use a QRP station. That comes at the earliest in the second passage.

... DE DK3RED =
ALL CPI HR DR ... =
NICE SIGS BUT SUM QSB =
PSE RPT UR QTH =
STN HR NORCAL 40 NORCAL 40 WID PWR 3 W 3 W
ES ANT VERTICAL VERTICAL ON BALCONY =
HW? =
... DE DK3RED KN

During the whole QSO's you should not bore your interlocutor with things, which he told you before. If he says to you e.g. that he uses a longwire, then return not UFB UR LW, but ask it for example, how long and/or how highly he has it strained. Or if you want to experience more over its location, then ask him for it. Trust you!
 
But all interesting ones is exchanged sometime and one departing from each other.

... DE DK3RED =
NW QRU =
WL QSLL VIA BURO =
MNI TNX DR ... FER NICE QSO =
HPE CUAGN ON AIR =
BEST DX ES 72 DE DK3RED SK

Directly after the termination of a QSO you should hear the used frequency always again. Very often during the QSO interested listeners appeared themselves, whom now also wants a QSO. After a QRP QSO dispatching of a QSL card should be natural. Your QSO partner earned itself it after the recording of your weak signal fairly.