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