[Elecraft] QRP and contesting

[Wayne Burdick]

Funny story.... Last Field Day my son and a friend of his went camping with our group. Neither of them are CW operators (yet), but they did know the alphabet. They borrowed a MCU-controlled code-practice generator from another op and were competing to see who could copy single letters at the fastest rate. 

When they got stuck at around 20 WPM, I said, "how fast does that thing go?" It apparently would go much, much higher, into Morse nosebleed range. 

Just for fun, I asked them to set it up to generate random English text at 45 WPM. I decoded enough of it to convince them that this code speed was in my head-copy range. Then they started bumping it up another 5 WPM at a time--a challenge! I was in some sort of zone that day. Maybe it was the sunshine; maybe the idyllic sound of blue jays; maybe the 4-pack of White Claw I'd scored at the liquor store. In the end I managed to copy several words at 70 WPM. I'll never know if they were inspired or demoralized. They shook their heads and went off on a 5 mile hike.

Wayne
N6KR


> On Nov 10, 2022, at 10:16 AM, Alan Geller <alan_geller2001 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Yea Wayne, thats the terrific Elecraft attitude that keeps your customer base strong and loyal. 
> Its called, “ lets all have fun and learn something” Hooray for the serious high speed ops, a 
> Lot of ex Navy guys, but its pretty easy to spot the slow lane and ease back into the fast lane.
> 
> Happy Veterans Day youse guys….K6ADG
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm in this group. Casual contest operation, usually QRP, mostly CW, and almost always logging by hand.
> 
> I greatly appreciate all of the very serious ops out there who approach this with a high level of skill and give everyone -- regardless of ability -- that next QSO.