Foundations of Amateur Radio

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Adding a stroke to your callsign ...

Posted: 01 Apr 2017 10:00 AM PDT


Foundations of Amateur Radio

To sign or not to sign, that is the question. Last week I spoke about
operating with low power, or QRP which sparked a lively discussion which
evolved into a conversation about adding bits to your callsign to indicate
some extra information.

For example, some stations will add stroke QRP to their callsign when
they're operating low power when others don't. Other examples are adding
stroke Portable or stroke Mobile.

Let me start by saying that I'm not familiar with the rules in countries
outside Australia, but I'd be surprised if they're much different, since
callsigns follow a global standard, but check your local laws before you
start getting on-air to make noise.

In Australia the rules, the Radiocommunications Licence Conditions (Amateur
Licence) Determination 2015, commonly referred to as the LCD has nothing to
say about any such addition to a call sign. There is no mention of low
power operation, mobile operation, marine operation or any such thing. The
reference to portable operation discusses how long you're allowed to
operate a portable station without notifying the regulator.

So, from a legal perspective, there is no such thing as a stroke anything.

So where does this addition of stroke QRP, or stroke Mobile or any other
variation come from?

The regulator maintains a website that has a page called "Amateur operating
procedures" which "can help prospective amateur operators". It details
types of transmissions, discusses code words like QRP and has one set of
comments about adding something to a transmission when operating mobile or
portable.

It suggests that you can say something like: This is VK6FLAB operating
portable on Wave Rock, and if you're operating outside your state, suggests
that you might shorten that to VK6FLAB/5 when operating in South Australia
or VK5.

So, there is no such thing as stroke Portable, stroke Mobile, stroke QRP
and the only suggestion from the regulator is that you indicate that you're
mobile or portable and help by indicating your state if you're not
operating within your home state.

In the past few years I have signed with VK6FLAB/QRP but after realising
that this causes much confusion in logging, I have stopped doing it. These
days you might hear me say that I'm operating QRP during a CQ call, to help
other stations a little, but I've often found that it's really not worth
the extra breath.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB
This posting includes a media file:
http://podcasts.itmaze.com.au/founda...teur-radio.mp3

On 03/31/2017 11:24 PM, FOAR via rec.radio.info Admin wrote:

To sign or not to sign, that is the question. ...
...
Let me start by saying that I'm not familiar with the rules in countries
outside Australia, but I'd be surprised if they're much different, since
callsigns follow a global standard, but check your local laws before you
start getting on-air to make noise.

The rules regarding callsign suffixes such as /p or /m differ from
country to country. In some places they are obligatory, in some they
are tolerated, but they are to the best of my knowledge not forbidden
anywhere, nor frowned upon. There are also /am and /mm for aeronautical
mobile and maritime mobile, where applicable. These four can be
considered "official", and you may include the numbers indicating
callsign districts here. Sometimes their use involved some extra
regulations, such as telling your QTH every so often, or not having to
keep a logbook.

/QRP and others are inofficial, frowned upon by some operators, used by
others nevertheless, not authorised and possibly not allowed by the
regulatory bodies, and hence causing some confusion every now and then.
I'd rather not use them.

The worst about these "inofficial" suffixes nowadays is that some people
mean to hear them even if you don't use them. I've had several OPs
return ".../QRP" when I was only signing ".../p". Oh well ... their
fault, not mine.

So, there is no such thing as stroke Portable, stroke Mobile, stroke QRP
and the only suggestion from the regulator is that you indicate that
you're mobile or portable and help by indicating your state if you're
not operating within your home state.

See above. It makes sense indeed to state when you are away from home,
but it does not help saying that you are QRP when calling. Either they
hear you and want to answer, that's fine. Or they hear you and don't
want to reply, that might be lazy of them and bad luck to you. Or lastly
they don't hear you, then it's not relevant anyway.

Signing /p, however, might make people curious - perhaps you are in some
interesting place, say, on an island or on a summit.

vy 73 de DL2LFH, Jan-Martin