GIVE A REAL SIGNAL REPORT

Its becoming a common talking point that a lot of stations are giving out 5/9 signal reports, when this is not often the case. REAL signal reports need to be given, not automatic 5/9's.

For example - Why would you give a 5/9 report and say "....your 5/9 but I couldn't copy your callsign", silly, your just contradicting yourself. Obviously, if you have not copied the other stations callsign, it may well have been a S9 signal, but it certainly was not a R5 for readability.

The correct way to allocate a Readability report is shown below - 

    R1 - Unreadable.
    R2 - Barely readable, occasional words distinguishable.
    R3 - Readable with considerable difficulty.
    R4 - Readable with practically no difficulty.
    R5 - Perfectly readable.

With your signal report, just read what your meter is telling you. Don't be afraid to add further to the signal report if your meter reads in +dB.

For example a station could be given a 5/9+40dB. Perfect copy

Alternatively a weak and noisy station could be given a 3/2 which is R3/S2.

You can only give signal reports to stations you are working simplex.

You can can give a report on a repeaters signal at your QTH.

You can not give a R/S signal report to a station via a repeater.

Although you can give a station a readability report into the repeater, you can not gauge their signal report to the repeater.

For example you can not say that station A is a 5/9 signal when you are copying them via a repeater. Though you can report on the stations readability via the repeater and report on the repeaters signal strength at your QTH.