I sent in my $25.00 renewal to QRP-ARCI this morning. And I got to thinking how QRP has changed over the years.
When I originally joined back in the late 70s - the stated goal of the organization was to keep output power under 100 Watts, in order to mitigate QRM and needless interference. 100 Watts! Wow! We've come a long way from 100 Watts. It makes me wonder what the original founders would have said if someone had asked, "Hey ....... why not make that 5 Watts?" I can only imagine that stares that question would have received, at the time.
In a time when a lot of organizations seem to be raising their dues, QRP-ARCI has been pretty consistent. $25.00 is not a bad price to pay for "QRP Quarterly", the organization's magazine. It's full of tips and technical stuff - I'm always learning something new. There's also more "human interest" non-technical articles in there, from time to time, that just extol the fun of running QRP.
And even though I have never been, QRP ARCI does a bang up job of running "Four Days in May" every year at Hamvention. I would dearly like to make it there one of these years in order to meet, face to face, the many QRP friends that I have made over the years. That would be grand, and is definitely on my "bucket list".
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
QRP-ARCI # 4488
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