[Elecraft] Elecraft CW Net Announcement

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Oops, that was a personal message to Kevin that got copied to the =
reflector
by accident. My apologies. I thought he had sent it only to me. Let me =
point
out, as Kevin already knows, that I would never do something that simply
caused confusion and QRM on the bands, even during a QRM-laden =
'contest'.=20

A couple of ops contacted me privately, feeling that anything they said
might simply polarize the members of the list and they didn't want to do
that. What they read in my message was an indictment of contesting and =
the
skill level of contesters in general. That was NOT what I intended. I =
used
to "contest" a lot, not so much for scores but more to see how well I =
was
"getting out" on the various bands, using the signal reports I received. =
I
quit doing that long ago because, with everyone using message memories,
signal reports aren't given any longer. When they're required they're an
automatic pre-programmed "599". Indeed, it's downright impolite to give
anything but a 599 since that will only cause confusion in logging at =
the
other end <G>.=20

To clear up any hard feelings I may have caused, here is what I replied =
to
one of the ops who contacted me off-line because he didn't want to stir =
up
hard feelings on the reflector:


I said, "... (contesting is) a far, far cry from
> handling traffic or
> carrying on a rag chew in the level of CW skill
> required...

As someone who has contested a fair bit over the past 50 years and who =
has
handled a bit of CW traffic on commercial circuits as well as (probably)
more than my share of rag-chewing on the Ham bands, it's how I feel.

I thought I was careful not to denigrate the skills required for =
contesting.
My point was that are DIFFERENT skills from those used in routine CW
operation, so I'm not surprised that some ops who love to contest on CW
don't choose to operate there at other times. And, as one other fellow
pointed out, some of them may operate ONLY during contests, just as =
others
only work DX...

If it hasn't happened already, I have no doubt that CW contesting will =
be
fully-automated at some point in the not-so-distant future. If I were =
out
for high contest scores, I'd certainly be pursuing that option. =
Eventually,
I think that we'll probably see a full merger of CW contesting with the
other digital modes so that there's little to tell between them on the =
air
except that some of us will be able to read the CW using only our ears.
Indeed, a skilled CW op might even gain an "edge" over other ops when =
RTTY,
PSK and other digital modes don't print properly.=20

Ron AC7AC