III. QRP Mode: Using the Receiver
1. Background
Obviously, the first thing you need to do to tune in a station is... remove the dummy load
(if you used one) and connect to a real antenna. A good antenna is a critical aspect of
any radio station. Since you are running QRP (Low Power), a good antenna is truly a
MUST.
One one level, tuning in a station is fairly simple: you scan up or down the band looking
for a signal, and stop and adjust around the signal so that it is decoding correctly. On
the other hand, it can be quite daunting.
Why can it be daunting? There are several reasons that you need to be aware of. First
and foremost is the "band condition." The band can be "open" or "closed." It depends
primarily on the sunspot cycle, the current sunspot activity, and time of day. If you hear
nothing on the band, the band is probably closed, or, as they say DEAD. Try later.
However, a dead band does not mean you can’t connect with someone nearby (local).
If you have a scheduled time and frequency to meet, even if the band is dead, i.e., long
distance communications is out, local can still work quite well, depending on your
antenna. Typically, the 40 meter band opens in early to mid afternoon, and is open at
various distances - ever growing farther and farther away - until very early morning. By
that I mean oh-dark-thirty. It’s all about the ionosphere and its height above the earth. It
rises at night, and thus your "skip" distance increases.
2. Receiver Incremental Tuning
You may have noticed after transmitting that the Frequency Button changes to show
RIT +0. RIT stands for Receiver Incremental Tuning. This decouples the receiver
frequency from the transmitter frequency. The transmitter frequency remains constant,
but you can make minor adjustments to the receiver frequency, as needed. Specifically,
when another station comes back to you the first time, their frequency may be slightly
off, and you may need to adjust the receiver frequency to remain set for optimal
decoder operation. More on that below.
