QRP is an Exciting Cognition

After many years, I met Tomas – an old neighbor of mine. The old street where we lived has since then been destroyed. We always understood one another, even though I am a few years older than him. While remembering our old neighbors and friends, I asked him if he was still interested in electronics and amateur radio transmitting. During his childhood he was all “transistors and coils”, so I was interested in knowing how he had progressed since then. He unexpectedly invited me to his home. He said “come on, I’ll show you how I catch my waves”.

A few days later, I made some time in the afternoon and went to visit him at his apartment. In a room which he proudly calls the “laboratory”, I felt as if I was in a miniature storage room. On the walls were many small drawers and on the shelves were many boxes with levers and buttons. On the bulletin board there was a map of the world which was different than an ordinary map you might see. I had recognized our continent, but the other parts of the world were deformed for some reason which I did not understand. I didn’t want to ask him about it just yet – I would wait until just before leaving.

On the table in front of Tom there was a small, neat box with some cables leading out of it. A jumble of telegraphic signals could be heard from somewhere on the ceiling. Tom turned a button on the box and some digits lit-up and then went out again. I could hear a weak signal, which could scarcely be heard above the humming noise. Tom listened in: “ It is some Ali from Crete. He has only 5 watts of output but he can be classified as a QRP station.”

Tom continued playing with the buttons for a few more seconds and then started making some strange movements with his hands. I watched him but couldn’t quite see what he was doing. Dots and dashes were sputtering irregularly from the loudspeaker. After he finished transmitting, I could see that the lever he had used was lying on the table. “Transmitting with Morse code is a little out of date, isn’t it?” I prided on an expression that I heard somewhere. “There are more modern ways of communications than the telegraph”.

Tom laughed: “Sure, there are a lot of ways to communicate. Amateurs have been communicating by phone for a long time now, and they have been sending pictures too. They have been contacting each other over satellite and from reflections of meteoric swarms from the moon. This is used in cooperation with a home computer. However, Morse code is so ingenious that it will outlive us! Due to its simplicity, it allows us to transmit long distances with very simple equipment and a minimal output of power. In its resistance to static interference, nothing compares to it. And furthermore, if you know Morse code, you can use it in other ways – you could even save a life with it!”

“What do you mean – You can save a life with it?” I asked.

“Not long ago I read that in Japan there was an earthquake. A house collapsed and a woman who was trapped there banged on the pipes using Morse code. She told the rescuers which room she was in and they found her in time.

Telegraphic communications are interesting in other ways too. I can sense if the person on the other end is a beginner, if he is calm or neurotic. I can tell who is transmitting by straight key, by vibroplex, dot-dash generator or Morse-code generator. Each has its own hand-writing”.

“Fine, but why would you painstakingly build your machine at home for transmitting over amateur bands when you can buy a perfectly professional manufactured device?” I didn’t understand.

“Factory products are nearly perfect, but they don’t teach you anything, compared to what you learn when you build the equipment yourself” answered Tom. “Do you know how I started? I had an old portable MW-SW receiver. Sometimes I tuned-in Morse but I didn’t understand anything at that time. I was intrigued, I wanted to know what they were saying, so I slowly started learning it. Next, I made a simple buzzer with one transistor and a telegraphic key made from a clothes pin. I didn’t even have a book on the ABC`s of telegraphic communications and Morse. I just started sending everything that came into my hands – even an article from a newspaper. When I went along a street, I would read signs in shops and whistle the letters in Morse.”

“I’ll bet that people looked at you as if you were strange.” I said.

“I didn’t care, because I was only thirteen. At that time I knew that there were some ham-bands and that they needed a receiver with a beat-frequency oscillator, otherwise they could not hear amateurs. So I produced my first high-frequency oscillator and I tuned it experimentally on the intermediate frequency of my portable receiver. It was a wild construction made with a tin can on a piece of metal and a rubber band holding down a flat battery. By moving it closer to the radio, I could set up the correct voltage on a detector and by putting the radio out of tune, I could catch some amateur ham-stations in a narrow band. Even now, I think back and remember that the first station was from Hungary HA5FO – the operator’s name was Gejza – he was from Budapest.”

“And when did you make your first transmitter?”

“It was later. First I played around with a simply antennas. I tore a few meters of wire out of a window and connected it to the radio in different ways to get better reception. Then I found some instructions for an antenna-tuning-unit. I immediately tried it out and you would be amazed at how the signals jumped right out of the humming noise. They don’t say it for nothing – that an antenna is the best amplifier! Then I listened to it for some time. I had my short-wave listener’s number and I photographically made my own ham-cards. I was very proud of my receiving equipment so I took a picture of my small ham-shack. Cards from around the world started coming in to me. Even though they were only for listening to, I was very happy.”

“Did you only listen to your portable receiver?”

“No, I was enjoying being on the receiver too – on direct conversion and on superhet too. For example, do you know what a CW stereo is? You are tuning on band and stations move from one ear to the other ear – it’s just like a panoramic picture!”

“Well, then I started studying transmitters. At first, I looked at magazines, and after some time I realized that the most interesting articles were printed from foreign magazines and that it was a long time before these articles were translated and available for us to read. It also bothers me that I am left to rely on some editor who chooses the bits and pieces that go into print. So, I started looking around – trying to get closer to the source. I started borrowing foreign magazines such as QST, Funkamateur and so on from the State Technical Library. Even though I couldn’t speak English or German, I was able to translate and understand many articles. Today I don’t even need to use a dictionary! I taught myself to speak a little Dutch. They have an interesting magazine called “Electron”.

“I did a lot of thinking about how to start. Money really limited me. In the end, I decided to buy a crystal for a ham-band 7 MHz (that is 40 meters wave) and I began building my transmitter from scratch using the most simple connections. It was a great feeling when I could hear nice tones on the receiver of my crystal oscillator. I had borrowed an oscilloscope, and now I could see what a perfect sinus looks like – its great!”

“I wanted to connect an high-frequency amplifier to my oscillator, so I studied many schematic diagrams. I tried a few ideas and in the end I decided on the most simple connection. Instead of an antenna I used a small bulb – and it lit up! You can laugh, but it is something completely different when you have a bulb light up with a battery or when it lights up with your high-frequency amplifier. The battery allows you to talk to someone on the other side of the street but the 2^nd way lets you talk to someone on the other continent!”

“You had a license at that time, didn’t you?”

“You know that I didn’t! But, I had enough sense to know that without permission I couldn’t transmit. Therefore, I visited a friend who was licensed for a long time. He tested out my first transmitter. I also learned how to adjust the antenna for the best reception. I was so excited that I went to get all the papers needed to get a license and I prepared for the test. I was 16 – the minimum age and the term for the exam was in two months. It went smoothly, probably because I already knew quite a lot about electronics and thanks to my homemade machine! I did it – I passed the exam! I got the concession and a call sign and since then I have been able to transmit legally. I have transmitted a lot since that time.”

“Did you then take your transmitter home and begin to look for band waves?”

“It was still necessary to make a proper antenna so that I could send out my milli-watts correctly. There are many antennas – each claiming to be better than the next. One antenna expert once told me that he sometimes   couldn’t sleep because the construction and building of antennas thrilled him. I worked on a few aids for the perfect tuning of an antenna – at first a SWR-meter and dummy-load and then a dip-meter with a wave-meter – this was good. Here is nice quotation by someone unknown “What can be measured – measure, what can’t be measured – make it measurable!” It is true. After tuning the antenna it was as if it came alive and threw my milliwatts a lot farther.”

“What was your first antenna like? I mean, other than what you used for receiving.”

“Well dipole, what else! It is guaranteed that it can be made easily and easily be connected to the transmitter. Immediately I started thinking about how to build something better. I constructed a few antennas. Now I am making a full-wave Delta Loop – it is a huge loop but it will work like a fiend. I am trying to find a place for it on the roof of our building and then it will be something super! I am counting on being able to transmit an extra few thousand kilometers with it!”

“A few more aids that I have constructed are: an electronic key with manipulator – it is called a paddle. This key has a memory where I have recorded texts, which are repeated often. I have also built a Morse decoder – but it is more for visitors. On a display it shows the Morse code translated into the alphabet and digits. I also have a digital frequency dial so that I can see if I have gone off the band – that would be an embarrassment!"

“Sometimes I come home from work tired. I turn on my receiver and quietly listen to the twittering of the telegraphic stations – it helps me to relax. I start thinking about other things than just work and I feel a lot better.”

“I read somewhere that amateur ham-radio connections is a bit stereotypical .....”

“ In each transmission there is data that is repeated. It is usually your name, where you live, what kind of transmitter you have, how well you can hear the other stations and so on. You could speak an entire hour just about QRP equipment with someone who has the same common interests. You don’t need to speak his language – you can speak through telegraphic shorts and Q-codes.”

“What does QRP really mean?”

“This means transmitting with a low output. It is a bit special-class among amateurs. To construct a transmitter with only 10’s or 100’s of watts of output it quite demanding on the construction – but when it is finished, it almost works nearly itself. In addition, the construction of large equipment takes a lot of time and money. If you build your QRP from older or used parts you could practically build it for free.”

“ With QRP, everything must be set very carefully – the transmitter, antenna and the receiver so that no milliwatts are lost. This is what really interests me. I am very finicky about the building of my own product. I try to make it as perfect as possible and then I go into competition with it.”

“Are there some competitions for amateurs?”

“Certainly. There is competition in the number of contacts made, the number of countries and continents contacted etc. There are also diplomas and prizes for long-term activity. I was eyeing the DXCC MILLIWATT Award. It is for being able to contact a hundred countries and your receiver can’t have more than one watt (1.000 milliwatts) of output.”

“How long will it take someone to do that?”

“ It’s different. There are some people who took more than 10 years. But it can be done sooner. It depends mainly on your antenna and your ability to follow the spread. I have reached 36 countries so far. It will go smoothly for the first 50 as these are countries around my country. After that it will be more difficult. A great thing is a rotating antenna. It allows you to concentrate your energy in one direction. I will have to produce a two-element quad if I want to have a chance at this competition.”

“QRP is an ecological matter too, isn’t it?”

“It sure is. It is an expression of your attitude to life. There is neither any waste of energy or use of unnecessary materials. Transmitting is done only with the output needed. There are also experts who use their homemade water- or wind-powered generator or solar panels. I like that. I want to work towards that too. I always want to be able to go into nature and be able to open up my small instruments to use energy from natural renewable resources.”

“Today though, I am happy that I started with such modest conditions” continued Tom. If some rich uncle had bought me a very expensive receiver I would never have learned so much about receivers, transmitting chips, antennas and the spread of radio waves. I would have probably used the receiver for some time and then put it away or I would have sold it. I would have become a passive user of technology who doesn’t understand anything and who only pushes buttons.”

Before I left, Tom showed me some well known cards which amateurs send as souvenirs among themselves – rightfully called QSL-cards. Exotic lands where some happy people are sitting with their homemade magic boxes and their mysterious antennas raised to the sky.

I forgot to ask about the deformed map of the world. Never mind, I will ask about it next time. I am sure that I will visit Tom more often. QRP is an exciting cognition of technology.