Re[2]: [Elecraft] Farnsworth CW

[W B Reese]

When I took the commercial, the 2nd required 20 Plain Language & 16 coded 
groups, and must be taken with a stick, either pencil or pen.  The 1st 
required 25 Plain Language and 20 coded groups, and may be taken with a 
mill or pencil/pen.  I elected to use a mill, which I borrowed from the 
station.  It being a spare that my boss lent me, it was an old Underwood 
with the metal rimmed keys and it had no Apostrophe.  Also, several of 
it''s uppercase number keys were in the wrong place.  The examiner made me 
type a page, and specifically noting that I would use a # key in place of 
the missing apostrophe.  Then, when I took the test, there were none of 
these characters used in my test, so it was all for naught.  Hi Hi.

As to the Extra, which I took a month later, there were four of us, three 
used bugs and passed, the fourth a kid, used a keyer and failed.

It might be interesting to note that when I took the 2nd, I was so nervous, 
I broke the pencil lead off my hand was shaking so badly, and I had to use 
a ball point pen for about 90% of the test.  Lucky, I had it in my shirt 
pocket handy.  The inspector almost didn't pass me because my handwriting 
was poor.

------------

As to bands,  definitely, 40 and 80 are the ragchew bands.  That's where I 
hang out on my commute to and from work.  CUL!

TR, WB6TMY
KW/100 S/N0838

At 07:56 AM 10/31/2003 +0000, you wrote:
>Thursday, October 30, 2003, 1:50:05 AM, you wrote:
>
>RDEC> I never saw a "mill" in an FCC test either, even though they were 
>"standard"
>RDEC> in the stations. We block-printed at 20 wpm the code groups, which 
>included
>RDEC> some truly arcane stuff for the commercial test because they used
>RDEC> punctuation. A code group string might be ATYGH $2HGY T(R)$...
>
>RDEC> They would allow an op to use a Bug for the sending test, but few 
>did. The
>RDEC> examiner said that almost everyone failed doing that. They'd get 
>nervous and
>RDEC> it's hard to keep a Bug from making extra dits when you're nervous. 
>I sent
>RDEC> on the FCC's straight key.
>
>Did you get sidetone in your sending exams?
 > Did you get sidetone in your sending exams?

HAW! That's a good one!
Yes, we did.

FCC supplied a straight key. Keyers and bugs were permitted, but hams were
advised to be ready to connect/disconnect quickly to/from the straight key. 
And
don't expect the electrical outlets to be convenient!

Mills were a different matter - hams weren't routinely permitted to use them,
*except* when a disability was involved.

CW conversations? One thing is the band - I find hams on 40 and 80 much more
amenable to real ragchews than on 20 and above. Must be the DX influence?
Another thing is that as soon as I mention my rig (either the K2 or the
Southgate Type 7) there's usually a 10-20 minute discussion of rigs and 
such. Then
I mention I'm using a bug and it's another 10-20 minutes, often because the
other op doesn't believe it's a bug.
73 de Jim, N2EY