[Elecraft] CW Decoding - Your Brain is best

[Jim Dunstan]

At 05:08 PM 11/8/2012, Jim Dunstan wrote:
>At 03:56 PM 11/8/2012, you wrote:
>>
>>          I respect the hams that have spent many hours developing and
>>improving their CW skills ... until they attempt to discourage hams who
>>choose to come at CW with a different approach. The conjecture that
>>those of us using decoders cause more problems than those audibly
>>decoding is just that - a conjecture. Inexperience is very likely a more
>>important factor.   Please note that many accomplished CW ops use keyers
>>when it's to their advantage - during CW contests.  Software-generated
>>code has no "fist"and is therefore more readable.  And many CW
>>contesters  can achieve higher speeds with accuracy using a keyer and
>>software than they may be able to do by hand.

I disagree to some of your statement.  In particular that computer 
generated cw ... that comes without "fist" is more readable..  I am 
from the old school ... I was a commercial CW operator at the end of 
the era.  The 'fist' as u describe was similar to a speaking 
accent.  Some accents are easier to understand than others (from a 
personal point of view).  The fist was very important ... it defined 
who you were. The official policy of the service was that operators 
should use a manual key.  However almost everyone on the net (used a 
keyer - bug in those days) which added to but didn't create the 
different 'fists'.  There were some great 'fists' ... some that u 
could sit back and read like music.  To be able to send with such a 
fist was really a 'gift'.  Such a gifted 'fist' is by far superior to 
computer generated cw using an unimaginative algorithim. If you can 
listen to a wonderful 'fist' and compare to a computer generated 
signal ... u would immediately recognize the difference.

So i encourage cw ops to develop their own 'fists' ... who knows they 
may be one of those gifted with the magic 'fist" ... the fist that 
allows you to sit back and enjoy listening to it.

Jim, VE3CI