The Power of Less Power

elcome to this year’s QRP Special. Low-power communication has been an essential element of amateur radio since its earliest days, and ’s coverage of it goes back to our very early days as well. The first mention is in the May 1947 DX column, about a ham operating from post-war Macau — then a Portuguese enclave on the coast of China — as CR9AN. He was running 20 watts, which was considered QRP at the time. There were many other mentions of QRP operating over the years, but it wasn’t until 1973 that we. That first column, by Ade Weiss, K8EEG, appears elsewhere in this issue as one of our two “CQ Classic” articles this month. The second is “The Song of the Flea,” by Mort Waters, W2NZ, who later became the editor of ’s then-sister publication,