For many QRP radio operators, joining a QRP club is a great way to share their love of QRP with others that have a similar interest. If you live in a big city chances are you will either be able to find a QRP club or others that are interested in QRP somewhere near you. On the other hand, if you live in a more rural area finding others that have the same interest near you may be a bit of a problem. Even if there is not a QRP club in your area you can still join a virtual QRP club online where you can converse with other people interested in QRP, often on an internet message board or chat group. The main benefit of joining a QRP club is that you get the opportunity to learn and share with people that may be much more experienced than yourself.
One of the most important things for a newcomer to QRP to do is to join some type of QRP club so that he or she has people to learn from. While it is possible to learn from QRP guides and internet resources, more often than not the most valuable information won’t be found in a text document but rather in the minds of fellow QRP operators. While some QRP clubs that are part of national organizations may charge membership dues and other fees as well requiring members to attend a certain amount of get-togethers or meetings most QRP clubs, especially the ones based on the internet, tend to be much less formal. These informal clubs serve as a sort of meeting ground anyone and everyone that is interested in QRP. Some clubs may even have evens where members all communicate with one another through their QRP sets, though this generally only works when the members live in close proximity to one another.
Being a member of a QRP club is also a great way to learn about QRP news and upcoming competitions, some of which can even be entered at the club level. While most QRP clubs consist of a handful of people all brought together by a common interest the larger clubs that exist on the national level, can have thousands of different members scattered throughout the world. Obviously with such a large club there is plenty of information and knowledge to be had from the various participants. Even though these large QRP clubs may not be as personal as the smaller clubs they still serve much the same function of bringing together people that share an interest in QRP. In many cases members of these large national QRP clubs will also be members of smaller clubs in their area as well. Larger QRP clubs generally have a variety of different resources for their members to take advantage of, such as QRP guides, plans and designs for popular WRP transmitters and access to other resources and events that may be helpful though it must be noted that these large clubs are generally the ones that charge yearly fees for membership in the club.
