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  • CQ Amateur Radio

    QRP: Low-Power Communications

    Apr 01, 2020 7 minutes
    BY R. SCOTT ROUGHT,* KA8SMA

    Two events come to mind at the start of each year — my town’s annual chili cookoff and Winter Field Day (WFD). As a chili lover and ham radio operator who enjoys operating field events, I am grateful the chili cookoff and WFD fall on different weekends in January. If they were the same weekend, I would likely be swallowing an antacid between WFD contacts — HI! By the time WFD rolls around each year, I feel like I have been cooped up in a cage for months and am ready for some outdoor activity. WFD is my answer to the wintertime blues as it offers me an opportunity to get outdoors, sharpen my operating skills, and have some fun on the radio from a remote location.

    This month I share my 2020 WFD operating experience (QRP-style, of course) and my wallop of a surprise as I watched a YouTube video that was filmed at the Vero Beach Amateur Radio Club (W4OT) WFD setup in southern Florida. Spoiler alert — some QRP naysayers may find this video alarming.

    Also, in honor of magazine’s 75th anniversary, I am highlighting a fellow QRPer in

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