[Elecraft] CW - SS - Off Topic

[N2EY at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/10/2004 9:59:20 AM Eastern Standard Time, "Mike Morrow" <kk5f at earthlink.net> writes:

>Lee wrote:
>
>>I was amazed how far and how easy contesting >>for CW has
>>become with the advent of the computer >>generating the code.

Memory keyers eliminated a lot of the sending even before PCs were common.

>>The slick computer programs for contesting have >>sure off-loaded
>>computing time on the grey matter CPU.

Yep. The voice folks aren't much different - latest thing in SSB contesting is the "voice keyer" with canned messages in *your* voice.

>It almost seems equivalent to running a marathon >by riding a motorcycle.

Having run two marathons and many shorter races, that's a good analogy! But such is the way of progress - the K2 has two VFOs, ten memories, can be remote-controlled and doesn't need to be tuned up.

>I guess I like the purity of older ways. 

I did SS with my "other" rig - all homebrew, 100W, inverted V at 37 feet. (google up my homepage to see a picture). No computer, no memory keyer, not even a second VFO. 424 QSOs in 76 sections. I can change bands in about 20 seconds but it's a bit more complex than with the K2....

The use of paper logs and lack of automated sending was a major limitation in how many QSOs I could make per hour this year, and how much effort it took to make the ones I did. 

>For example, it's amazing how many
>of today's ham CW "gurus" advise Morse newcomers >to skip the straight key
>and begin with an iambic keyer.  

I think that's bad advice, and actually makes it *harder* to learn good sending.

73 de Jim, N2EY