SINPO And SINPFEMO Reports

SINPO Code

With SINPO all we are doing is splitting the R part of an RST Report into its individual components I, N and P:

I stands for interference, or QRM. Think about this as a reading for the degrading effect of interference on the QSO. When giving the report you can think the same way as you do with the R report for RST. For a signal with very heavy QRM you give it a report of 1 and a signal with little or no QRM gets a report of 5.

N is for the degrading effects of noise - QRN. Note that interference from a broad-band data transmission might sound like noise, so if you can do some checks to ensure that you gave correctly determined whether the apparent noise is indeed noise rather than QRM.

P is a measure of propagation-related distortion such as fading, flutter or perhaps an auroral rasp on the signal. This is perhaps the more difficult one on which to report as on a strong signal the effects of QSB may be less noticeable with the good AGC/DSP systems in our rigs these days.

SINPO Code

	S	I	N	P	O
5	Excellent	Nil	Nil	Nil	Excellent
4	Good	Slight	Slight	Slight	Good
3	Fair	Moderate	Moderate	Moderate	Fair
2	Poor	Severe	Severe	Severe	Poor
1	Barely audible	Extreme	Extreme	Extreme	Unusable

We can offer even more detail bordering on information overload.

SINPFEMO Code

SINPFEMO is SINPO for grown-ups, adding additional reporting for Frequency Of Fading and some indication of Modulation quality. A station can't do much about fading out but it can do something about what it sounds like.

S - Signal Strength

I - Interference

N - Noise

P - Propagation

F - Fading of Frequency

E - Modulation Quality

M - Modulation Depth

O - Overall Rating

SINPFEMO Code

Rating	S	I	N	P
5	Excellent	Nil	Nil	Nil
4	Good	Slight	Slight	Slight
3	Fair	Moderate	Moderate	Moderate
2	Poor	Severe	Severe	Severe
1	Barely audible	Extreme	Extreme	Extreme

SINPFEMO Code

Rating	F	E	M	O
5	Nil	Excellent	Maximum	Excellent
4	Slow	Good	Good	Good
3	Moderate	Fair	Fair	Fair
2	Fast	Poor	Poor or Nil	Poor
1	Very fast	Very poor	Continuously over-modulated	Unusable

A signal report shall consist of the code word SINPO or SINPFEMO followed by a group of five or eight numerals. The Overall Rating for radiotelegraphy is shown below as a little guidance against gut reaction.

SINPFEMO Overall Rating

Overall Rating	Operating Condition	Quality
Excellent Good	Signal quality unaffected Signal quality slightly affected	Commercial
Fair	Signal quality seriously affected Channel usable by operators or by experienced subscribers	Marginally commercial
Poor Unusable	Channel just usable by operators Channel unusable by operators	Not commercial

At the end of the day, most radio operators tend to say:

It was alright leaving me