[Elecraft] CW Secrets of the Masters

[Bill W4ZV]

TR, WB6TMY, K2 S/N 838 wrote:
> 
> 
> When I was a commercial operator at KPH, nearly all the operators ran 
> AGC off all the time.  It makes the QRM/QRN fade away.
> 
> TR, WB6TMY
> 

Another one that Fred K3ZO (many time winner of Dayton CW pileup contests)
recently mentioned is using extremely low pitch for weak signals.  Fred said
many commercial ops he knew used somewhere in the 2-300 Hz range so he
thought his favored 400 Hz was rather high!  I discovered this myself many
years ago using the TS-930S which had a continuously adjustable pitch
control down to zero!  I found 240-270 Hz worked well for weak signals
buried in noise on 160m.  My hearing is excellent at all frequencies so this
is not an issue of hearing loss but simply something I discovered works well
for me.  

Low pitch does not work well for pileups or contests where there are many
signals.  For those I prefer 400-450 to better catch off-frequency callers,
and shift 150-200 Hz on the low side of the center of the passband.  Then I
can hear most callers pitched at 200 Hz and up.  Another thing K3ZO does is
to use a wide filter (~1 kHz) and let his ears' 50 Hz DSP filter do the
work.  I haven't yet mastered that in a contest like the CQ 160!

I'm getting by with the K3's lower pitch limit of 300 Hz but hoping for
lower some day!

73,  Bill  W4ZV

P.S.  Any others...especially from ex-commercial ops?
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