[CW] High speed sending (and receiving)

[Donald Chester]

I have never made it a point to deliberately practise high speed cw.  Just 
work stations on the air as they come, and over the years I seem to have 
become most comfortable @ about 25 wpm, which is what I mostly hear over the 
air from hams who have a few years experience.  I can copy fairly well 
beyond that, and I find the bug more comfortable to use than my iambic 
paddle, which is collecting dust on the shelf at the moment.

I find COPYING at 30 wpm and higher difficult unless the sending is good and 
the signal is solid and QRM/QRN free.  At QRS, you might miss a dit from a 
static crash.  But at high speeds, you might miss one or more letters.  I 
always copy in my head, rarely attempting to wirte anything down.

Under extreme conditions when signals are near the noise floor I find it 
helps if both stations slow down to 10 wpm or lower.

Don K4KYV

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