[Elecraft] Farnsworth CW

Wed Oct 29 19:07:00 2003

David:
   Good cw is a flow.  The characters that comprise a word flow 
together, when properly sent, into a coherent and unified entity, which 
is the word.  I read a lot here about people receiving whole words at a 
time.  But with good sending you also have the whole word in mind while 
you're sending, and indeed you are anticipating not just the next 
letter as you send but the way the whole thing will fit together.  It 
should be clear that anything, such as Farnsworth, that breaks up that 
unity is detrimental to the best of sending.  No one who has the 
Farnsworth spacing ingrained in their conceptualization of the code is 
going to be able to send cw at its best.  The added space, which 
becomes second nature, also makes it harder for those who can receive 
cw at high speeds to receive your sending.  The spacing is distracting.

   Similar considerations apply to bug users who have a pronounced lilt.

best wishes,

dave belsley, w1euy

On Oct 29, 2003, at 6:16 PM, David Toepfer wrote:

> While I no doubt respect the experienced opinion of Ron I also 
> respectfully
> disagree.
>
> I have my reasons for disagreeing with him, but my inferior experience 
> would
> make them easy to refute as naive.
>
> What I would like to know is how many other experienced CW ops agree 
> with him
> and why.
>
> dt
> .
>
> --- Ron D'Eau Claire <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> After working a lot of ops who learned with the Farnsworth system, 
>> I've
>> found that I am no fan of the system and never recommend it to 
>> someone who
>> wants to be able to send good CW over a range of speeds with minimum
>> frustration.
>>
>> The Farnsworth system seems to have been FB for getting people ready 
>> to pass
>> the CW tests more quickly, but it doesn't prepare many ops for real 
>> CW on
>> the air.
>>
>> CW has a rhythm that is based on the length of each element and the 
>> various
>> spaces between them, including the words and letters. There are very
>> specific ratios involved that Farnsworth ignores and the students 
>> don't
>> learn.
>>
>> Learning that rhythm is very important! I know several ops who had to 
>> learn
>> CW twice. Once with the "Farnsworth" method with un-naturally long
>> inter-character spaces and high character speeds, and again with the 
>> proper
>> rhythm to have actual QSO's on the air.
>>
>> To me, listening to someone using Farnsworth spacing is like hearing 
>> a band
>> play a favorite piece of music at double-speed, stopping for a long 
>> pause at
>> the end of each bar so the time it takes to finish the whole piece is 
>> the
>> same as it would be if played properly. I find it jarring to hear,
>> un-natural and often hard to follow. Also, since they never learned 
>> the
>> proper intervals, if they speed up they start mashing characters 
>> together in
>> a mess. With modern keyers the logic at least forces a minimum spaces 
>> but if
>> they try to use a manual key the results are often comic, if not 
>> downright
>> sorrowful.
>>
>> Maybe it took me longer than others today to get my 35 wpm Code 
>> Certificate,
>> but I can deal with anyone from 5 WPM on up to at least 30 and I can 
>> send at
>> any speed with ease and CORRECTLY.
>>
>> I take pride in that. But it's really tough when I run into someone 
>> who
>> learned the Farnsworth way and they want me to spit out letters and 
>> leave
>> un-natural spaces. I feel like those musicians I mentioned. It isn't 
>> fun and
>> it's hard, not to mention bad "practice".
>>
>> My recommendation is to start at whatever speed you can recognize 
>> letters...
>> Five WPM or less is fine, and slowly increase your speed as your 
>> ability to
>> recognize the letters improves.  But do it with the correct spacing 
>> and
>> element lengths from the beginning so you only need to learn once. 
>> Listen to
>> and emulate lots of CW sent with the proper spacing and cadence and 
>> emulate
>> what you hear. Record yourself and see if it sounds the same.
>>
>> If, in time, you want to become a real "high speed" conversationalist 
>> on CW,
>> you can learn to hear words instead of characters. That's easiest 
>> done over
>> 20 WPM, I think. There are groups who enjoy working 30 or 40 or more 
>> WPM,
>> but they are a TINY segment of the total CW population. It can be 
>> fun. I'm
>> no "high speed" 40+ WPM op, but I enjoy a QSO at 25 or 30 WPM from 
>> time to
>> time, and at those speeds I hear words as much as characters.  Keep 
>> in mind
>> that almost every one of us starts out learning characters. After 
>> all, on
>> the old commercial circuits CW ops were biological machines, 
>> duplicating
>> exactly what we heard on paper, character-by-character. IF the message
>> spelled SHIP "SIHP" we darn well put SIHP on paper. The operator 
>> might ask
>> to confirm if something was sent and heard correctly, but never made
>> changes. Of course, that's graphically demonstrated when the test is 
>> to send
>> and copy five-letter code groups that are meaningless. That's what my
>> commercial CW tests required.
>>
>> Just like a musical instrument, I recommend that you learn to play it
>> properly from the beginning, and embellish and add to your skills 
>> after
>> you've mastered the basics. And the basics include the proper timing 
>> over
>> your whole range of speeds.
>>
>> There are those who quickly point out that it has been proven that the
>> Farnsworth system will create a 35 WPM (or faster) op more quickly 
>> than
>> working up your speed over time. That's probably true. I'm not 
>> disputing
>> that. It is also true that some early radio and wireless systems used 
>> that
>> approach to CW training. What is also true is that those circuits 
>> operated
>> at ONE SPEED! Some companies even welded the weights on their bugs in 
>> place.
>> The weight controlled the operator's sending speed. That way everyone 
>> had to
>> work at exactly the same speed. Learning code was a matter of 
>> learning to
>> send at the "company speed" in the shortest time. It seemed to me 
>> that was
>> what made it popular in Ham circles. Ops wanted to get up to 5, 13 or 
>> 20 wpm
>> to pass the tests in the shortest possible time. That was back when 
>> CW was
>> required for ALL Ham licenses. Many of those ops never intended to 
>> touch a
>> key again.
>>
>> That's like learning to drive a car at only 5 MPH. Once you do that, 
>> you
>> can, indeed, drive. But you still have a LOT to learn if you get into 
>> a car
>> on the roads where you must operate it properly at all different 
>> speeds. In
>> spite of the latest "fashion" being Farnsworth, it's still just a 
>> fashion
>> and not one that necessarily serves the needs of today's average Ham
>> operators best.
>>
>> Ron AC7AC
>>
>>
>>
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