[Fists] CW Down the Tubes?

[Jeff Davis]

I can't disagree with anything you said Al, but that's the bad news.

The GOOD news is that every day I'm working more operators who have been
licensed for a relatively short time (less than 10 years) and they are on
cw! These are folks who *could* be on phone, but they're pounding brass. I
think that's a positive thing. It could very well be that telling people
that they "can't" do something makes them want to do it ... or maybe they've
become fed up with the silliness that sometimes goes on in the phone bands,
or perhaps they don't want to spend a kilobuck for an amplifier that is
*required* to work their cross town buddy on 75m, or maybe they just want to
learn a new skill.

Whatever their reason, cw continues to intrigue people.

Years ago, whenever I worked an Extra class operator they generally always
had excellent fists and ran at pretty high speeds. It was impressive and I
always wanted to be like them. These days, I work a lot of Extra class hams
who don't run quite so fast and their procedure is somewhat lacking ...
while some here have complained about that, I take it as a positive sign.
Here you have a person with an Extra class license, who could work phone
anywhere on any band, and yet they are chewing the fat with me on cw. That
my friends, is a GOOD thing. I take it to mean that they want to improve
their cw skills, or at least dabble a bit in the art and that is GOOD news
for Morse enthusiasts.

Any which way you cut it, cw seems to be experiencing something of a
renaissance right now and I just hope that it is not too late to convince
others, who haven't even listened to our bands in the last few years, that
the code is not dead but rather, is making a comeback!

73 es CU on the bands
Jeff, N9AVG
http://www.qsl.net/n9avg/


----- Original Message -----
From: <ATanner283@aol.com>
To: <n9avg@worldnet.att.net>; <fists@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 9:35 AM
Subject: Re: [Fists] CW Down the Tubes?


> Jeff...I don't think it is because of lack of use, I think it is because
of
> lack of interest and our failure to introduce new operators to the joy of
CW.
> Back "you know when" a novice had NO CHOICE but to learn the code to
upgrade.
> He had a year to do it. Or else he  was OFF the air. During that time an
op
> would learn procedure and hone his skills as well as picking up speed. He
was
> XTAL controlled also. Believe me, one of the biggest reasons to upgrade
was
> to get rid of those dang XTALS and get a VFO.