[CTSARA] And Still Another Interesting Field Day Statistic

Sun Jul 4 15:53:51 EDT 2010

 Folks,

Many thanks to Andy for spreading the religion of CW.  I am a perpetual journeyman with CW, my receiving ability fluctuates between 15 wpm (with no practice) to 20 (with about a weeks work of practice).  To give you a feel for the state of our club on FD 6-7 years ago, I was the lead club CW operator, ( indeed a scary thought) other than the operators that we would borrow from other clubs.  And I would manage about  75 or so contacts and call it a day.  There are a ton of CW stations you can work on FD if you can handle 15 wpm or so, and the FD format of short, predictable exchanges actually makes it easier than having a normal, CW QSO.  Plus, interpreting the incoming call sign and section information is actually a shared responsibility of both the CW operator and the logger, so you'll have help. 

We will be happy to run a course and/or mentor anyone individually in an effort to increase CW resources for the club.

Geeze, even my wife knows CW, she was taught it back in 5th grade at Sacred Heart by her teacher, who was also an officer in the army reserve at the time.  And she loved it...

But she has no other interest in the hobby, she supports it by giving me the time to play in it, and making chile on FD.  I can live with that!

For those of you interested in going 4A for FD, read and head AT's attached comments on the matter, which are right on the money.

73,
Ter

-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Siegel <andrew at siegel.org>
To: ctsara at mailman.qth.net
Sent: Sun, Jul 4, 2010 12:30 am
Subject: Re: [CTSARA] And Still Another Interesting Field Day Statistic

Like I said earlier, I am be happy to help anyone become a CW operator.

I ask two things:

Thing 1) Learn the characters of the Morse Code on your own.  The 

available training tools are going to help you far more than I can.

The ARRL has a Morse Code training CD:

   http://www.arrl.org/shop/Your-Introduction-to-Morse-Code-audio-CDs/

Also a decent page of Morse Code resources:

   http://www.arrl.org/learning-morse-code

And the ARRL also broadcasts code practice throughout the week:

   http://www.arrl.org/code-practice-qst-source

*And* they have files online for you to listen to and practice from:

   http://www.arrl.org/code-practice-files

There are other training CDs and software, and many different techniques 

as well.  The "right" way to learn CW has become something of a 

religious issue in the ham radio world.  I think that the most important 

thing is to learn the code well enough (by whatever means) to get 

yourself on the air and talking to people.  Don't use CW decoders or 

software -- use your ears and brain.

Thing 2) That after you learn the code and the CQ QSO protocol (which I 

can help with), you get on the air using CW, on a regular basis.

The bar for entry into the CW world is fairly low.  It's not necessary 

to become an exceptional CW operator -- for long QSOs, you just find 

someone who isn't going to send you code faster than you can receive it 

(my favorite Q signal is QRS: "slow down").  For short QSOs (into which 

category fall the majority of DX, contesting and Field Day QSOs), you 

can fake being able to copy at high speed; you really only need to copy 

about 12-20 characters in order to log the QSO.

So where can I help?  I can teach protocol, i.e. how to proceed through 

various types of CW QSOs.  I can drill: on-air drilling for comfort and 

familiarity within the CQ QSO protocol, and direct drilling of 

FD-specific techniques.  Finally, I can advise and help with CW gear.

Can I get a show of hands from folks who might be interested in making 

the jump to CW?

73,

Andy

N2CN

AT Crocker wrote:

> To Andy's point, I think several 'pushes' are in order before jumping out of

> 3A.

> 

> 1) substantially expanded CW presence. I volunteer, by the way. I'm new to

> it and I stink at it and want to get better. Jon's idea of a club class or

> some intensive old-fashioned Elmering (potentially on-the-air on a sked)

> would be great.

> 

> 2) substantially expanded "free" participation:

>   a) QRP

>   b) 6M

>   c) Other V/UHF

>   d) Digital

> 

> As I understand it, we still get to play 3A, but can do whatever we want in

> these other categories with as many transmitters as we choose. We had a lot

> of multi-band antenna capacity laying fallow quite a bit of the time.

> 

> 73 --- AT

> 

> 

> -----Original Message-----

> From: ctsara-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:ctsara-bounces at mailman.qth.net]

> On Behalf Of Jonathan Solomon

> Sent: Friday, July 02, 2010 5:32 PM

> To: Andrew Siegel

> Cc: ctsara at mailman.qth.net

> Subject: Re: [CTSARA] And Still Another Interesting Field Day Statistic

> 

> Perhaps a club class?

> 

> On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 10:48 AM, Andrew Siegel <andrew at siegel.org> wrote:

>> Before we jump to 4A, remember that there are a lot of opportunities

>> to get on the air in the CW tent.  We are likely going to lose Neil

>> (KX2Y), our guest operator this year, so we could really use some CW

>> ops.  Otherwise it's just Leonid and me.  I would be happy to work

>> with anyone who wants to learn CW or to build up their speed.

>>

>> --... ...--

>> Andy, N2CN

>>

>>

>> On Fri, Jul 2, 2010 at 10:07 AM, O'Connor, Tony

>> <tony.o'connor at credit-suisse.com> wrote:

>>> Well, if we go 4A next year, we can put more people on the air and

> *increase* our overall number of QSO's, right?

>>> 73,

>>> Tony

>>> KB1SUN

>>>

>>>

>>> ----- Original Message -----

>>> From: ctsara-bounces at mailman.qth.net <ctsara-bounces at mailman.qth.net>

>>> To: Stamford Amateur Radio Association <ctsara at mailman.qth.net>

>>> Sent: Fri Jul 02 08:58:26 2010

>>> Subject: [CTSARA] And Still Another Interesting Field Day Statistic

>>>

>>> I was looking at the number of operators we had in the three HF tents

> (i.e., not including GOTA and not including VHF).

>>> We had a total of four more operators this year than last year.  This

> year we had a record 18 different operators on the air from the HF tents

> versus 14 different operators last year.  In fact, six of the people who

> operated in the HF tents this year were not in our logs from last year or

> the year before.

>>> Despite that -- or maybe because of that -- we wound up with club record

> numbers of QSOs on phone and on CW.

>>> I suspect it's "because of" since it meant that we always had fresh (or

> relatively fresh) people on the air   For example, this year we were able to

> make a good run right to the end, as opposed to last year when our

> production dropped off after about 1:15pm.

>>> I understand that there are a few people who would have liked to have

> operated this year who didn't -- mostly because they were concerned about

> impacting our QSO counts.  Next year you folks WILL get on the air!!!!

>>> JonKB1QBZ

>>> P.S.   Let's keep this our little secret and not tell Terry that we know,

> but Terry's admitted that he's willing to see our QSO counts go down if it

> means more club members get on the air.  And keep that quiet, Terry may be

> listening and we don't want him to know that we know.

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> 

-- 

Andrew Siegel

113 Gary Rd

Stamford, CT 06903

203-461-9011

andrew at siegel.org

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