[Elecraft] ECN Experience

[Tom Hammond]

Hi Jamie:

Man, I HOPE you really sent "Jami" instead of Jamie though... I sure copied 
"Jami" each time... if I blew it, I apologize.

>I managed to check into my first CW net ... uh, after 30 years as a 
>ham.  Well, better late than never.  I listened first to the 20M net - 
>lots of activity and QSB.  I was able to copy about 50%.  You guys are 
>very good CW operators ! Some were going 25-30 WPM. Then I watched the 
>super Super Bowl ! Wow ! What a finish !

Actually, I was (consciously) trying to hold my speed down when I was 
sending to 'the group'. I did speed up on certain ops because I knew they 
could handle it and I needed to get info which would be passed again a bit 
later at slower speeds. I do understand however, how a brief spate of 
higher speed CW cold tend to put one off a bit, especially if they thought 
it was going to be that way all the time.

>As a cardiologist "on call" on Super Bowl weekend, I have lots of plates 
>to keep spinning on poles. Well, I ran to the shack to try out the 40M net 
>after the great game. It was 30 mins after start but I heard Tom, N0SS in 
>there and I gave a call at a meager 20 WPM with my K2/100.  He came back 
>and I sent my info.  Then the phone rang - yep, the hospital, but a 
>quickie.  A quick ?? back to Tom and he wanted my call again.  After I 
>sent that and he confirmed, the phone rang again - damn, another hospital 
>call, this time not so quick and I missed most of Tom's numbers, but I got 
>in.  All in all, a good experience.

Last night was a bit 'harried' for several of us... we had numerous 
occasions where more than one op was sending over the top of the 
other(s)... and this is never a good thing. Fortunately, it didn't last too 
long, but I'm sure it was more than enough to cornfuse some ops... I sure 
was anyway. We'll try to improve on things next week.

It was great(!) to have several NEW ops join us on one or the other of the 
two nets yesterday... V73GJ, Jeff, from the Kwajelein Isl., checked in on 
20M, but was very(!) weak and asked me to QSY with him to 21.050MHz. Jeff 
was hoping to have some members of the net try to work him, but I'm not 
sure that info got out as well as we'd hoped it would. Kevin mentioned it 
on the net, but I think many missed it due to marginal conditions. Jeff was 
quite copyable on 15M, and stuck around on 21.050 for a while, looking for 
callers. Maybe next week, he'll QNI again and we'll have a better chance to 
let some others work him.

Getting a new net started takes time... to educate the NCS, and to educate 
the other ops as well... each needs to learn Net procedures (protocols) and 
to get a feel for how the NCS handles his end of the job. As time goes on, 
and ops have questions about how to check in or how to operate in the net, 
I hope they will ask them here on the reflector, for the benefit of others 
as well as themselves.

CU next week, hopefully.

73,

Tom    N0SS     Mid-Am QSP/QNB for Kevin