Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Dear Cousin QRM

Dear Cousin QRM,
My YL has corralled me into finally tying the knot. I’m trying to save money on the wedding so I can buy a K3. So I had the brilliant idea of printing our wedding invitations on the back of my QSL cards. Most of my friends are hams, so I know they’ll appreciate it. My YL isn’t too keen on the idea. What do you think?

Desperate in Des Moines

Dear Desperate,
Cousin thinks it’s a wonderful idea to print your wedding invites on the back of your QSL card. Ever since the A-R-Double-L started up that online log program, LoLTW, our stack of custom printed QSL cards from The Little Print Shop has been sitting pretty constant and gathering dust. Sounds like a good plan to use those cards up, but make sure you use the one with both of your calls on them. What? She doesn’t have a callsign? Wellllllll, good luck. In our experience those mixed marriages don’t work out too well.


Dear Cousin QRM,
How many radios are too many?

Broke in Bangor

Dear Broke,
This is one of those rhetorical questions, ain’t it? Like, if a tower falls in the forest and there’s no one to hear it fall, can you still work the ZL7? After great deliberation, Cousin’s answer to your question is ‘two more than you currently have’.


Dear Cousin QRM,
The FCC rules say we’re supposed to use the minimum power necessary to make a contact. But my QRP signal is always getting blown away in the pileups by all these guys running amplifiers. Because they are running excessive power, I can’t work the DX. I spent five days in the pileup for the South Orchid DXpedition, calling and calling and calling before I ever worked him. Obviously, if I could work them with 5W, they don't need a thousand. If it wasn’t for all those QRO fellows QRMing me, I could have worked them a lot sooner.

QRP in Quantico

Dear QRP,
You spent FIVE DAYS calling in the pileup? Cousin flipped on the Alpha and worked them in about 15 minutes, after which he went back to catching up on episodes of Desperate Housewives. Who caused more QRM?

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