A number of people joined up when they heard the name with QRP in it and were disappointed when they found that it was not a true low power club.  Many of them left, some stayed around.  I was one of those who stayed around, although my primary interest was in "real QRP", with small, simple radios, etc.  We were a barely tolerated lunatic fringe in the QRP ARCI, and the QRP Quarterly of that era had only rare tidbits on the subject.

I joined in 1967, with number 2706, and stayed around until I left ham radio in 1970 when I joined the Air Force.  However, I did do my part for true QRP in those few years.  I was on the Board of Directors in 1969 and 1970, I think it was.  Except for the 1000 Miles per Watt award, which was in existence for some time already, the club awards (QRP DXCC, QRP WAS, QRP WAC, etc) were all for achieving those goals with 100 watts (input) or less.  I proposed an additional award for working states (starting at 20) with 5 watts or less.  The other BoD members agreed quickly, and I designed the certificate, wrote the rules, etc, and got one of the early awards myself.

In those days, the QRP ARCI also had Call Area Representatives, and I volunteered to be the one for the 8th district.  Since my mother was doing the bulletin every week at church I had access to a mimeograph machine, so I started putting out an 8th district QRP ARCI newsletter called QRP/8 (every 2 months, I think).  It was just another little newsletter except for one thing--since almost the very first issue I included a section which I called the QRP Corner, dedicated to news and projects of "true" QRP.  After a while, Ade Weiss, W0RSP (K8EEG/0 at the time) stumbled across a copy and went through the roof when he saw the QRP Corner--he found out he wasn't crazy, and he wasn't alone--there were OTHER people happily working with a handful of watts just like he was!

He immediately proposed that we chuck the QRP ARCI part and convert it into a 100% QRP journal, since the QRP Corner was why most of the people were subscribing in the first place.  He suggested a name change, and I liked his idea of The Milliwatt: National Journal of QRPp.  He took over the printing at the U of SD where he taught (and still does) and the rest is history.  Ade did the bulk of the work on the new magazine himself, and I handled the subscription end.  Even while I was still there he did all of the publishing work, and Ade deserves the credit for the vision that produced The Milliwatt out of QRP/8.

Although the total run of The Milliwatt was 33 issues, I left after 4 issues to join the Air Force, which was an attractive alternative to being drafted into the Army while Viet Nam was still hot.  [I say that every time I talk about The Milliwatt, but the truth of the matter is that while my student deferment had ended, I could have easily renewed if I had chosen to move over to the 4 year university and finish off an engineering degree.  I was in the first year of the draft lottery, in which they picked capsules with birth dates from a drum, with the first hundred or more guaranteed to be drafted, and depending on where you lived you weren't reasonably safe unless your number was somewhere in the 200's.  Mine was 361!  Needless to say, since a large number of people "voluntarily" enlisted in USAF because they were about to get drafted into the Army, and not too happy about it, I didn't advertise my lottery number much!]

Somewhere around 1977 or so, Tom Davis, K8IF (ex WB2TEN, a long time true-QRP stalwart) was president of the QRP ARCI and he proposed that it abandon the 100 watt focus and convert itself into a true QRP club, at the five watt level.  Naturally this raised howls of protest from the Old Guard, but over a year or so he managed to slowly and diplomatically pull it off.  The new focus of the QRP ARCI became "true QRP" and all vestiges of the 100 watt limit were eventually eliminated.  The club was now dedicated to people who loved playing with flea power, although they could "legally" run higher power at any time, for any reason whatsoever (DX, nets, traffic work, ragchewing, etc).  (I neglected to mention earlier that members had to sign a pledge that they would NEVER run more than 100 watts for any reason except, I believe,  true emergency situations.  The pledge had been a sore point with a  number of people who were interested in QRP but were turned off by the pledge.)

I didn't return to ham radio until 1986, and was overjoyed to find that the QRP ARCI was now a QRP club!  I started writing for the QRP Quarterly in 1988 or so, and still do.  I missed out on all the fun of the fight to turn it into a real QRP club, though K3TKS and many others were there and can tell stories about it.

While K6JSS founded a club that bore the name QRP ARCI, we have K8IF, Tom Davis, to thank for its conversion into a "true QRP" club and we all owe him a tremendous debt for that.  Ade Weiss used to write a regular QRP column for CQ magazine, and in 1983 he wrote an excellent piece about Toms work in making the QRP ARCI into what it is today.  I asked CQ magazine for permission to reprint it in the October 1995 issue of the QRP Quarterly (page 6).

If anyone wants to "rejoin" the QRP ARCI and had a member number years ago, mention the fact when you write and they should be able to dig it out of the records and reactivate it.  I believe that member number 59 is still active in QRP, or was a couple of years ago, but if N6MM rejoins he will take over the position of Lowest Active Member Number :-)

 
73 and Queue Our Pea de Mike, WA8MCQ