[CW] Brass Pounders League, ending signals, etc.

[Fred Adsit]

What does the Brass Pounders League have to do with CW? It is a ranking =
that takes your traffic handling and public service and leadership =
activity into account. It not a club of some kind.

As for end of traffic, in US traffic handling it is simply AR N.

Using SK for anything but an end of QSO purpose is out of the question.

Using dot instead of the Morse period to me makes perfect sense for =
describing email addresses and is used routinely in the US and =
elsewhere. If you start using special characters like @, really now, why =
are you trying to introduce confusion? It may work in one country or =
something, so use it on a 2M simplex frequency, OK? :-)

Pounding brass refers to any kind of keying with a KEY or paddle, and =
excludes keyboards or any other keying methods such as blowing thru a =
straw - not meant to be amusing - many disabled people key that way or =
in other ingenious ways that are not in the brass-pounding category.

And no, I didn't get out on the wrong side of bed this morning. This =
country has managed to get most others to learn English, whereas =
relatively few Americans know any foreign language, although Spanish is =
gaining fast (but schools require using English from all who choose to =
live in this international melting pot). Between using Q signals and =
commonly known English words and abbreviations, we use CW to talk =
clearly with hams all over the world.=20

In any event, congrats to those who are coming back to CW, or just =
starting it. There aren't many weirdos around like me so you'll likely =
enjoy it. I sure do. :-) Am gradually working back to using it =
exclusively unless nets force me into an SSB or FM assignment.

I haven't turned on the rig as of yet - been in my yard and trees (spare =
me, please) - but isn't this a CW Sprint weekend. I don't dig =
contesting, but will CU in C2C using W2ZOJ, as will at least one other =
club member. As for ragchews, any time, any speed. First I do need to =
stop fighting with how to use the word processor and my brain to cope =
with this latest WRC03 fiasco, and it IS keeping me off the air. =
Bigtime.

73
DE
Fred
NY2V #1293
W2ZOJ #7900 - ZUT ARC

--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
multipart/alternative
  text/plain (text body -- kept)
  text/html
The reason this message is shown is because the post was in HTML
or had an attachment.  Attachments are not allowed.  To learn how
to post in Plain-Text go to: http://www.expita.com/nomime.html  ---