[Elecraft] "On second thought, I'll take the stairs."

[Bill Frantz]

I love Wayne's story, which demonstrates how much more value you 
get from mastering activities that involve some difficulty. As 
others have pointed out, it is very well written too. However, 
sometimes those arguments don't work.


When that happens, my favorite argument is: And how do you ask 
for 5 units of type O+ blood on FT4/8?

I use FT4/8 frequently, but it always seems a bit like cheating 
because there is no good answer to the above question. 
Contesting and DXing started as practice for emergency 
communications, which is the reason many people give for getting 
their licenses. Emergency modes should allow for the above message.

As an example, when operating in Field Day, it is legal (I 
think) to use a cell phone as a link to an Internat based time 
server. Does this make sense for an EmComm based event? One can 
argue about GPS based time sync or high stability clocks, but 
modes that require time sync seem fragile in an emergency 
situation. What happens if a CME has taken out the GPS?

The good news is I made many CW contacts, along with some PSk31, 
RTTY, and voice contacts which don't have these problems.

73 Bill AE6JV

On 7/12/20 at 11:07 AM, n6kr at elecraft.com (Wayne Burdick) wrote:

>Within weeks, he'd mastered everything there was to know about 
>this glorious new hobby.
>Point. Click.
>
>In this new world order, those of us who took the longer, 
>slower path to ionospheric enlightenment -- and who still 
>occasionally enjoy making waves by hand -- often fail to 
>explain why.
>I had failed to explain it to my friend. Even as hints of his 
>boredom crept in, creating an opening, the best argument I'd 
>made for trying CW was that he could do it without a computer. 
>Coming in a weak second was the notion that CW was the original 
>digital mode. For obvious reasons, I didn't bother with the 
>classic argument about CW's signal-to-noise advantage over SSB.
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