photo copyright 1995 Steve Hideg
click image to enlarge

by William Eric McFadden

Note: I no longer own an Index Labs QRP Plus, having sold it in September, 2008 to Dave Wilcox, K8WPE to help fund the purchase of an Elecraft K2. This page about the QRP Plus will remain active for archival purposes.

From the manual:

The QRP PLUS is a compact low power transceiver with the features and performance you expect in a modern full size transceiver.

• All band Operation 160M through 10M
• General Coverage Receiver 1.8MHz to 29.7 MHz
• 20 Memories Can Be Set to Any Frequency in the Operating Range
• Provision for Efficient Split Operation
• High Performance SCAF Digital Filters Variable from 100Hz to 2400Hz
• Single Sideband and Full Break-in CW Operation
• Built-in Iambic Keyer
• Very Low Power Consumption on Receive

Transceiver Features:

• SSB and full break-in CW
• adjustable transmit power from 0 to over 5 watts
• covers all ham bands from 160 meters to 10 meters
• general coverage receiver
• built-in iambic keyer
• variable (100 Hz to 2.4 kHz) SCAF audio filter
• RIT and split transceive operation
• switchable 20dB attenuator
• relatively low current requirement: 150 mA on receive

Index Laboratories offered two versions of the QRP Plus: the original QRP Plus, and the later Improved QRP Plus. The latter utilized a custom-designed mixer in the receiver and promised improved receiver performance. (Sadly, the Improved QRP Plus did not quite meet expectations.)

Index Labs also offered an accessory, the QRP Companion, which contained in a cabinet the same size and shape as that of the QRP Plus, an antenna tuner, a noise bridge for use in tuning an antenna, and a gel-cell battery with charger.

Index Labs no longer offers amateur radio equipment and does not service the QRP Plus or QRP Companion.

My QRP Plus, serial number #0719, was an original version with a Revision 03 EPROM and was un-modified. It was my primary portable HF transceiver. The QRP Plus is small and rugged, has a nice feature mix and an excellent user interface, and while its receiver performance isn't that of a competition-grade transceiver, the little rig served me well in the field.

Manual: I have scanned the manual of the original version of the QRP Plus and have made it available as a 2.5 megabyte zip file and a 2.4 megabyte PDF file.

Update 2024-04-11: David Wilcox, K8WPE, reports that the QRP Plus can be serviced by Guy Mengel, N1GMM, who has experience repairing the radios and has a supply of spare parts.

Advertisements:

• Original QRP Plus, December 1995 QST
• Improved QRP Plus, May 1996 QST

Articles: I have collected articles from QRP-L and other sources on the QRP Plus:

• Reviews of the QRP Plus
• Operating Tips for the QRP Plus
• Modifications for the QRP Plus
• Microphones for SSB Operation with the QRP Plus
• Troubleshooting the QRP Plus by Stan Yarema
• The original archive--big!--unexpurgated, in text format, of some of the QRP-L messages concerning the Index Labs QRP Plus. The original archive is courtesy of L.B. Cebik, W4RNL, with additional material collected by me.
• An archive--big!--unexpurgated, in text format, from the QRP Plus mail list maintained by Larry East, W1HUE, with additional material collected from QRP-L.

QRP Plus Links:

• Larry East, W1HUE, has written a series of articles on QRP Plus modifications for the QRP ARCI's QRP Quarterly; these articles and manuals for the original QRP Plus, the Improved QRP Plus, and QRP Companion, are now available on Larry's site.
• Emtech has possession of most of the remaining QRP Plus parts and documentation.
• Emtech maintains an email reflector/forum for the QRP Plus here.
• QRP Plus Users' Group on Yahoo! Groups
• The ARRL review of the Improved QRP Plus (the second generation QRP Plus) is available on the ARRL "Members Only" site. (new URL)
• Mark Peterson, WF7M, (email) has new-old-stock cabinet sets for the QRP Plus available for sale.

Attributions: Advertisements scanned from original documents.