[Boatanchors] The Silence of the Bands

[B Farrell]

My primary mode has always been CW and I'm active on HF.  Sometimes there's
little or no CW activity on particular bands depending on the day and the
sunspots but I can switch bands and always find CW somewhere. There's
definitely less CW activity on 80 -- DX and casual ragchewing -- in the
evenings than in years past although things perk up during contests. I
would like to see more CW activity on 80.

Your friend's "everybody" claim is a load of b.s. He might be like the
local we have here on a VHF repeater, routinely b-tching about how bad the
bands are and every time I hear him going on about that I'm hearing CW on
HF.

I have tried some of the newer digital modes but they don't hold my
interest.  I have always been fascinated by CW probably because when I
first heard it as a kid listening to a shortwave receiver it really grabbed
me.  It's never let go!  The same with 45 baud RTTY.  I will likely dabble
in the new modes from time to time, though.

The one gentleman mentioned a bug. For rag-chewing I use a bug, iambic
paddle, or straight key; for DX the iambic paddle or bug; for contests
usually a keyboard nowadays simply because it's easy to also log contacts
on a PC. I know some gents who have arthritis who find it more comfortable
to use a keyboard for rag-chewing and so forth.

Brad K4RT