[Elecraft] CW in Emergencies?

[Kevin Rock]

Many evenings, around 10:30 PM PDT, I sit in my bed getting caught up with 
my technical journals with my headphones on listening to folks QSO on 40 
meters.  I have a wire cut for 40 plus a counterpoise but the wires are 
across the bookshelves of my room making them not too effective as 
vertical radiators.  I find listening to CW while reading very relaxing.  
If I am working through a derivation of some long bit of an equation my 
mind may not hear as much of the QSO but when I am done with the math the 
CW comes back to the fore part of my brain while I read on.  Nice way to 
get ready to sleep.  Thus, I think the answer to your surmise is yes, 
there are a lot of folks listening but not sending.  There is a key beside 
the bed but I've yet to use it from that position.  Maybe soon ;)
    Kevin.  KD5ONS


On Wed, 07 Sep 2005 09:53:35 -0400, Stephen W. Kercel 
<kercel1 at suscom-maine.net> wrote:

>
>> Ralph says:
>
>> There is CW out there but sometimes the activity does
>> seem sparse.
> ************************
>
> I'd wondered about that. I was completely inactive from July 1983 to 
> November 2004, and I've noticed that the CW bands seem a lot less 
> populated now than they did 20+ years ago. For example, last night as I 
> tuned across the CW end of 40 m I heard maybe 6 QSOs. Admittedly, the 
> geomagnetic activity has been high and propagation over the past week 
> has been actively stinking.
>
> On the other hand, I wonder if the sparsity of transmissions is really 
> from fewer hams operating, or simply from fewer hams transmitting. I 
> expect that quite a few operators do what I do, listen without 
> transmitting until something genuinely interesting pops up. My reason 
> for suspecting this is that I repeatedly notice a remarkable phenomenon. 
> The band will seem very quiet, maybe 2-3 QSOs in a 20 kHz segment, but 
> then a rare (sometimes even not so rare) DX station appears, and a 
> pileup develops literally within seconds, and becomes massive no later 
> than the DX's second QSO. This happens too fast to be the effect of a 
> spotting net or computerized spotting, I can only conclude that many 
> operators are listening, ready to pounce when the moment is right.
>
> 73,
>
> Steve
> AA4AK


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