Power data field

Hi, I have a beginner question. When entering QSO details what exactly is the power field for? Is it TX or RX?

In the expanded view of fields it doesn’t appear in the “their” section or “our” section. I can imagine times when some operators want to record the power as transmitted by the far end. But also in QRP operations the transmitted power (I’ve sometimes turned down the TX power to see how low QSOs are possible).

My best guess is it is the watts as reported by the far end but I couldn’t find this in the manual so I wanted to check.

Does it correspond to an exported field?

Thanks for your patience

Ian

Hi Ian,

OK it is YOUR Tx power. There should be minimal power used during Rx and it’s not something anyone records.

I’ve heard people ask the other OP what power they are running - it’s normally associated with the report being given but I have never heard of anyone recording the power of the other station other than via the notes field which can of course contain anything relevant that you like.

If you record your power, it’s “sticky” i,e. it remains for each subsequent QSO until you change it to another value or remove it. It will export in the full export. If you do not record anything for power in any QSO, the export will not export a column with no values.

Thank you for a great answer. That makes perfect sense. When stating I’m QRP I nearly always get a comment about the antenna and power from the DX. I’ve never thought to record my own power on a paper log. So I wasn’t confident in my understanding.

The bit about having no value is really useful.
Thanks
Ian

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Hi Alan, I want to record my TX power so that it appears in my main station log when I export the ADIF file from PoLo. I can see how to add it to an individual QSO but I don’t find that it is sticky - it does not appear for the next QSO. Have I misunderstood something here? My goal is to be able to set the power as a fixed figure for each Operation.

It certainly is “sticky” if you add the power control to your input area.
If you only add power to the “more” info, it is not sticky.

Use the cog to add power to your inputs
Alan