[CW] cw future

[Donald Chester]

>In fact, there may be more hams on CW now than back in the '50s and '60s,
>simply because there are more hams now.

When I upgraded from Novice to General in 1959, I had one 80m xtal outside 
the Novice band, somewhere around 3600.  I plugged it into my homebrew 30 
watt transmitter and never had any problem making a contact.   I later went 
to VFO control using a converted ARC-5 as master oscillator.

I recall during the 50's and 60's there was plenty of cw activity on 80m in 
the evening even during the summer.  40m was packed with cw activity even 
during the day on workdays.

This is not counting contest periods.  Where do all those stations go during 
non-contest periods?

Today, I often hear no CW activity at all on 40 during the day while I am on 
vacation during the summer.  I can call CQ till I am blue in the face with 
no reply, despite running QRO.

But I also notice phone activity is down as well.  There may be more 
licensed hams, but HF activity in general is down compared to then, and 
there is definitely less cw activity.

Don K4KYV

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