Why do we use 72 instead of 73?

[PA1FJ]

Does anyone have a good explanation for it ?

73 Fred!

[IZ5ZCO]

Hi Fred, see here:
http://www.ac6v.com/73.htm

QRPers sometimes sign off with 72 indicating they may be a mite short on power for a full 73!

But Kevin Cozens writes "In one of the magazines I was getting for a while from one of the QRP clubs (can't remember if it was from the Michigan QRP club or the G-QRP club) I learned of the use of 72 for the first time. Their use of 72 was based on the idea that "QRP operators do more with less". If you add that to the page you will have both a QRP as well as the QRO operators view of 72."

[GM0LVI]

Hi Fred, see here:
http://www.ac6v.com/73.htm

QRPers sometimes sign off with 72 indicating they may be a mite short on power for a full 73!

But Kevin Cozens writes "In one of the magazines I was getting for a while from one of the QRP clubs (can't remember if it was from the Michigan QRP club or the G-QRP club) I learned of the use of 72 for the first time. Their use of 72 was based on the idea that "QRP operators do more with less". If you add that to the page you will have both a QRP as well as the QRO operators view of 72."

Maybe we should send '74' to indicate 'More' with 'Less' 

[G0BVZ]

We don't all use 72.  At least I don't.     QRP is pretty much in the mainstream now so I do business as a normal ham.  Why risk convincing a non qrp ham that I can't send a '3'?

Vic /still waiting for the coffee to kick in...

[VK6MB]

Vic /still waiting for the coffee to kick in...

Maybe we will have to add something to the coffee   
I suppose traditionally it would be a ration of rum, but that doesn't suit my taste.

72/73/44 etc Mike VK6MB

[G0BVZ]

Maybe we will have to add something to the coffee   
I suppose traditionally it would be a ration of rum, but that doesn't suit my taste.
72/73/44 etc Mike VK6MB

I likes yer thinking but I never touches the grog until there's no possibility of having to drive for the rest of the day. Bein' as 'ow I'm the worst driver in the Northern Hemisphere that seems to be the best strategy!!!   

3.142,

Vic /Well, we all want a piece of the pi.......

[PA1FJ]

TNX!
 72 ! Fred PA1FJ

[IZ5ZCO]

This is very interesting: in QRP Basics by George Dobbs, G3RJV, Founder and Hon. Sec. of the G QRP Club, I'm reading that the 72 greeting was first used by Oleg Borodin, RV3GM at the end of the 1980s and has caught on as a greeting between QRP stations.

So we have the inventor of the 72 greeting on our ship and you, Fred, can ask to him directly.

[PG4I]

I find '72' very hard to send in CW.... Almost always I end up sending '73', because I am so used to it...