[Elecraft] Farnsworth CW

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Good advice from Stuart, Dave.

Whatever you do, have fun.

Us Humans are smart, even if sometimes we don't feel smart. We're smart
enough to avoid things that are painful - things we don't like - and we
gravitate toward those that we enjoy.=20

Keep it fun and you'll have to pry yourself away from honing your CW =
skills.


Don't take too much advice from others. Inside you probably know what =
you
WANT to do already. After you've read all of our advice, follow your own
hunches.=20

Don't let the ops who say "hi/g'bye" get you down. Some of them might be
thinking that your CW is awful, but I'll bet most of them are like I can
still remember being long ago... Happy to have made a QSO, and worn out =
from
the excitement even though it was a five-minute Name/Rpt/QTH contact. By
doing it, you helped someone else. That's never bad. When I bump into a
truly abysmal fist or an op who can't figure out what to say, I just =
pretend
that I'm talking to myself five decades ago, that it's a young version =
of me
on the other end struggling to "get it right". It's a chance for me to =
pay
back all the nice ops who encouraged me back then.=20

I don't know if they still do it, but the ARRL used to have a "Rag =
Chewer's
Club" certificate awarded when a current member nominated someone after =
a
QSO lasting at least half an hour. I still remember getting mine signed =
by
"The Old Sock".  If they don't do it any longer, maybe we should =
resurrect
it.

Yeah, Stuart, I REALLY miss the press on the marine frequencies too. At
least the ARRL still sends bulletins by CW.=20

Ron AC7AC

-----Original Message-----
Dave,
Immerse yourself in some CW listening practice, such as ARRL code runs,  =
and
any commercial CW or numbers stations you can hear.

That proved helpful in my regaining the rhythm of the characters. =
-Stuart
K5KVH