[Elecraft] CW listening pitch

[Wes (N7WS)]

My mom signed me up for violin lessons when I was about 7 or 8.  I hated it and 
quit shortly after.  In hindsight (20-20) I wish I would have stayed with it. In 
high school a friend was a drummer in the band.  He wanted to take up sax but 
the *hole director wouldn't let him because he needed drummers for the marching 
band.  My buddy convinced me to become a drummer so he could take up sax.  Of 
course, you don't need to read much music to play snare drum in a marching band 
so my skill was limited. although I did play timpani in the orchestra so I read 
(past tense) a little.

I was interested in radio even before high school so when I got there I met a 
guy who had been a (lapsed) Novice and learned a little more about it.  We 
formed a radio club and since the principal was a Lt. Cmdr in the Navy reserve 
and CO of the local center, the faculty advisor was able to tape record the 
Navy's code practice records.   The club would meet only once a week to practice 
code.  Needless to say this wasn't often enough and we would start from the 
beginning meeting after meeting.  I grew tired of this and wound up learning the 
code by sight from my 1954 Boy Scout Handbook (I still have it).  As a 
consequence I never became proficient.  I took my Novice and then Conditional 
exams from a neighbor (W7UVR sk).

All was good for some time.  I became interested in weak signal VHF work and got 
into 2-meter tropo and meteor scatter.  Schedules were set up on the Central 
States VHF Society net on the high end of 75-meters.  At some point it was 
decided for QRM reasons to relocate the net to the Advanced Class part of the 
band.  Uh oh, "incentive licensing" reared its head and I needed to upgrade.

The next time the RI came to town I was ready to take the Advanced exam.  Since 
I had credit for 13 WPM already I didn't have to take the code test and didn't 
practice. After passing the exam I asked the examiner whether I could try the 
Extra.  He said, sure sit over there, the test will start in a few minutes.  
When the test began I completely choked.  I wadded up my paper and threw it in 
the trash.  The examiner said that he needed to see it anyway.  He was very kind 
and said something like, "I'm afraid I can't get much out of this."  I was 
humiliated and vowed to pass the exam the next time the FCC came to town., which 
I did.

But I'm still neither a musician or a fast CW man.

Wes  N7WS


On 3/1/2015 3:22 PM, Edward R Cole wrote:
> I played in the school band from 5th grade thru 12th (played clarinet and 
> oboe).  I was member of the church choir.  I play classical guitar...and never 
> got better than 12wpm copying CW.   But my musical background likely made 
> sending easy (18-20wpm with straight key).
>
> So goes another "urban myth".  Of course if I could have held my Novice longer 
> than one year that might have helped vs getting a tech license and being 
> banned to 6m-up which was mainly AM way back then.
>
> More likely was due to my initial interest in voice vs CW.  After three years 
> of failed CW exams at the FCC office (long before VE program or multiple-guess 
> code tests - one minute perfect copy of five character groups of random 
> text/punctuation/numbers).  We lived 5 miles too close to take the Conditional 
> license.
>
> But I passed in 1982 (24-years later) before the FCC at the Anchorage Office 
> because I wanted to go out on the Iditarod Trail as a ham radio checkpoint 
> volunteer.  Comms were on 80/40m SSB so you had to have a General License.  CW 
> test made much easier to pass in 1982 with real text and multiple-choice 
> testing on content.  I also took and passed my Advanced in same sitting.
>
> Passed Extra in 2000 when code requirement was dropped to 13wpm.
>
> 73, Ed - KL7UW
> http://www.kl7uw.com
>     "Kits made by KL7UW"
> Dubus Mag business:
>     dubususa at gmail.com