[Fists] Is it just me?

[ke9v@yahoo.com]

Points well taken ... I know that many years ago as a Novice, I
received a QSL card from a ham who put up with my botched procedures.
Included with his card though was the article, "Your Novice Accent
(and what to do about it)" by W6DTY. For the first fifteen minutes it
hurt my feelings that I had sent poorly and this chap had sent me a
paper about it. But after a short while I read the paper, learned the
many things I was doing wrong and I got over it.

To this day I am quite pleased that I was sent that article. It sure
helped a new ham figure things out.

I only wish sloppy sending habits were as easy to constructively
criticize...

73 de Jeff

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robert I. Block W2SR" <W2SR@trackdata.com>
To: ""FISTS"" <Fists@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 11:29 AM
Subject: Re: [Fists] Is it just me?



So two cases:

1. A newbie whose CW skills are not mature.  What's a nice way to let
someone know (in an encouraging way) that it's a bit of a struggle and
you'd like to give them a QSO for practice, but keep it brief (and I
think, having been there, the newbie would like to keep it brief
before
risking getting electrocuted by the sweat on the key).

2. An OT who should know better but insists on sending L as "di
daaaaaaah didit" and other examples of sloppy code.

Again, the idea is not to antagonize or wound, but to nurture and
improve.  Frank feedback, given in a gentle tone can be an effective
teaching tool.  One of the purposes of FISTS is for experienced
operators to work with newcomers and to accept an imperfect QSO.  On
the
other hand, some things need to be corrected, and yes, there is a lot
of
it going around.