[Elecraft] FT8 - was "On Second Thought, I'll Take The Stairs"

[Victor Rosenthal 4X6GP]

For me, it's simple.

When I make a CW contact, even if its total content is "ENN TU", I am 
connected to history, to Jack Phillips on the Titanic, to all of the 
military traffic men and airborne radio operators of WWII, to the 
operators on the merchant ships on the high seas and the Great Lakes, 
and to all the hams of the past, even Mr. Marconi, the first ham.

I like hearing the propagation change with my own ears and struggling to 
capture an ESP-level call. I like the feel of the key and the sound of 
the code. I like the idea that there is another person like me at the 
other end with his or her hand on a key.

I consider myself extremely lucky to have caught the bug at a young age 
and developed the skill needed to make CW as transparent to me as my 
mother tongue. I see how hard it is for those who begin to learn at 
middle age or older. They shouldn't give up -- it's worth it.

73,
Victor, 4X6GP
Rehovot, Israel
Formerly K2VCO
CWops no. 5
http://www.qsl.net/k2vco/
.
On 13/07/2020 5:06, Wayne Burdick wrote:
> 
>> On Jul 12, 2020, at 6:57 PM, David Gilbert <ab7echo at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> Think of it this way ... CW works fine as both a contest mode,
>> DXing mode, and conversational mode.  Underlaying CW with a well
>> configured digital signal processing scheme like that which is
>> under FT8, except with a different user interface than either
>> WSJT-X or JS8,  could be equally versatile but with maybe 6-8 db
>> better S/N ... possibly by an even greater margin if the decoding
>> allowed errors instead of being all or nothing.
> 
> 
> Except that (a) you don't have to know CW, and (b) you don't need a
> key. There goes 73% of its charm :)
> 
> Wayne N6KR