[Elecraft] CW Program

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

As a person who uses a Bug 95% of the time and a Straight Key the rest
of the time, I use CWGet to test and improve my sending.. I practice
regularly to avoid getting a "swing" and other habits I don't want. My
favorite practice is to send a page out of the phone book, numbers and
all. The goal is perfect copy on CWGet using a bug. I've never achieved
it yet, but it's fun working at it.

Some folks ask why use a bug or straight key when we have machines that
are more precise and which never screw up. But, ya' know, I enjoy
listening to a live orchestra more than computer-generated music.
Indeed, I used to look down on ops who used keyboards. I had used a
keyer for nearly 20 years. Once in a while I got out the straight key,
but I was useless on the bug. My brain completely forgot how to provide
the exact timing that a bug demands - timing that keyers provide
automatically. 

I got an answer to a call on CW one day. His call was vaguely familiar.
Clearly, he was a master on a keyer or he was on a keyboard. Then he
told me why his call was familiar. He was an old Maritime Radio Operator
who I had worked many times years before. Back then, he was using his
bug and he used to chide me for my keyer. Then he suffered a stroke. It
cost him all of the fine motor control in his hands. The doc had told
him that he was lucky to move them at all. 

He was determined to do what he could, in spite of the odds. But a
manual key was completely beyond him. So far, all he could do was poke
one finger at a keyboard. He hoped that I wasn't "put off" by his using
a keyboard. 

"Put off?". I was just glad that he had survived and was back on CW.
After the QSO I took my bug down from its display shelf, cleaned it up,
and learned how to use it again. I'll return to a keyer or use a
keyboard some day, if I must. I will if that's the only way that I can
send clean CW. Until then, I'm savoring every moment with my bug, just
like I savor life itself.  

That QSO taught me that the important choices aren't the ones made by
the other guy, they're the choices that I make that make my life as full
and interesting as I am allowed. I can't play a musical instrument. I'm
not a doctor who can repair a broken body.  I'm not an artist who can
paint a beautiful picture. I can't do a million things that other people
do. But the bug, it's just something that makes me smile - and that's
reason enough. If I'm working a guy with a keyboard, or a keyer, or a
straight key, it doesn't matter to me. I only hope that he's having as
much fun as I. 

Ron AC7AC
K2 # 1289