[Elecraft] Getting Started With CW

[Jim Brown]

On Sun,11/30/2014 8:25 PM, Leroy Marion wrote:
>   Does not a paddle and keyer give you perfect timing?

It's been nearly 60 years since I went through that. Paddles and keyers 
did not exist -- we had "bugs," but did start on straight keys. But bugs 
are inherently different from the paddle/keyer combo. Perhaps one of the 
CWOps guys who are working with CW Academy can offer an opinion. Mine is 
that sending good CW is mostly a matter of training our brain and 
fingers to mimic the good CW that we hear. Unless you're a real straight 
key "pro," they're far too slow for most on air CW, so if you're going 
to learn what you're going to use, I don't see the value in going 
through an intermediate step.

BTW -- if you want to get a great start on CW (or build your skills), by 
all means take advantage of CW Academy. This is the brainchild of K6RB 
and a few other CWOps members, and it's been quite successful. 
http://www.cwops.org/  I'm a proud member of CWOps, but not very active. 
It's a great group. Membership is by invitation. You don't need to be a 
member to be in CW Academy or the many on-the-air events. Check out the 
website.

73, Jim K9YC