QQ

Another surprise waiting in the mail for me when I got home from work! Today I received the Winter 2009 edition of "QRP Quarterly", the journal of the QRP-ARCI. QQ is a wonderful publication; and is well worth the subscription price. Even though by no means do I have the technical skill or knowledge to grasp all the contents, it's still a treasure trove!

This QQ features a good Ham Radio friend, Jim Cluett W1PID. It's always a pleasure to catch Jim on the air; and it's always fun to read his stories about QRP in the great outdoors. I haven't read the article yet; but am very much looking forward to it. I noticed that the editors of QQ did something different this issue with regards to Jim's article. In the main body of QQ, the photos that occur are published in black and white. Jim's article was accompanied by some many wonderful color photos that they took the extraordinary step of eliminating advertising from the back inside cover and published Jim's photos in color! That's a tribute!

BTW, if you want to visit W1PID's Website - click here.

Other articles that I want to spend some time reading are Roy Lewallen W7EL's article on QRP Field Day with Tips and Tales. And in the QRP World News department, there's a short bio of how Oleg Borodin RV3GM got into Ham Radio. For those of you who don't know, it was Oleg who coined the term "72" that we QRPers use in addition to or instead of "73". To us it means, "Wishing you good QRP".

Also, there's an article about working the Ham Satellites using QRP. Hmmmmm .... an article in QQ and QST about the same subject in the same month. Is someone trying to tell me something?

Finally, one of the most enjoyable part of QQ for me is the contest section. While I am no means a big hot shot contester, I do enjoy reading the Soapbox comments every issue. I have come to know and become friendly with a lot of the Hams that send in contest logs; so it's a treat for me to read their comments.

If you are a QRPer and you don't belong to QRP-ARCI, you really should consider it. You'll find that a lot of the "Cream of the Crop" of the QRP crowd belong. And it seems the best new ideas and technical articles make it into QQ sooner or later. Even if you're like me and don't pretend to understand half of it with any authority, you still have to shake your head in admiration of the guys who come up with this stuff.

73 de Larry W2LJ