[SADXA] Fwd: N6KR on CW

Tue Jul 17 15:44:28 EDT 2018

Hi Tom:

Well no one gets to 50 wpm without a lot of hard work. It took him many 
years I am sure to get to 50, but no one needs 50 wpm to work DX. 25 or 
30 will get you anyone that's out there. The bottom line is it worth 
hard work. The easiest is just call them on the Cell Phone and ask for a 
card or send them $10 and avoid all the aggravation of turning the radio on.

The biggest issue with all this with me is when someone comes up with 
having worked a pile of DX on FT-8 and wants to compare it with the old 
way that took hard work and lots of equipment. They are not the same and 
there is no real good comparison to be made.

73's

Jerry

On 7/17/2018 12:30 PM, Thomas Kramer wrote:
> Sounds ok if you are an accomplished op like Wayne @ 50 wpm but for me 
> CW is hard work.
>
> On Tue, 17 Jul 2018 10:59:34 -0700, Richard Schmidt <k7nsw at ispud.net> 
> wrote:
>
>> Thank you Jerry. A very good read.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>>> On Jul 17, 2018, at 9:15 AM, Jerry <jdwothe at cox.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> This essay by Wayne, N6KR, came to me via a close friend in CA. I 
>>> thought I would pass it along for entertainment of all.
>>>
>>> W6XI
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I find that CW has many practical and engaging aspects that I just 
>>> don’t get with computer-mediated modes like FT8. You’d think I’d be 
>>> burned out on CW by now, over 45 years since I was first licensed, 
>>> but no, I’m still doin’it :)
>>>
>>> Yes, FT8 (etc.) is a no-brainer when, despite poor conditions, your 
>>> goal is to log as many contacts as possible with as many states or 
>>> countries as possible. It’s so streamlined and efficient that the 
>>> whole process is readily automated. (If you haven’t read enough 
>>> opinions on that, see "The mother of all FT8 threads” on QRZ.com 
>>> <http://QRZ.com>, for example.)
>>>
>>> But back to CW. Here’s why it works for me. YMMV.
>>>
>>> CW feels personal and visceral, like driving a sports car rather 
>>> than taking a cab. As with a sports car, there are risks. You can 
>>> get clobbered by larger vehicles (QRM). Witness road range (“UP 
>>> 2!”). Fall into a pothole (QSB). Be forced to drive through rain or 
>>> snow (QRN).
>>>
>>> With CW, like other forms of human conversation, you can affect your 
>>> own style. Make mistakes. Joke about it.
>>>
>>> CW is a skill that bonds operators together across generations and 
>>> nations. A language, more like pidgin than anything else, with 
>>> abbreviations and historical constructs and imperialist oddities. A 
>>> curious club anyone can join. (At age 60 and able to copy 50 WPM on 
>>> a good day, I may qualify as a Nerd Mason of some modest order, 
>>> worthless in any other domain but of value in a contest.)
>>>
>>> With very simple equipment that anyone can build, such as a 
>>> high-power single-transistor oscillator, you can transmit a CW 
>>> signal. I had very little experience with electronics when I was 14 
>>> and built an oscillator that put out maybe 100 mW. Just twisted the 
>>> leads of all those parts together and keyed the collector supply--a 
>>> 9-volt battery. With this simple circuit on my desk, coupled to one 
>>> guy wire of our TV antenna mast, I worked a station 150 miles away 
>>> and was instantly hooked on building things. And on QRP. I’m sure 
>>> the signal was key-clicky and had lots of harmonics. I’ve spent a 
>>> lifetime making such things work better, but this is where it started.
>>>
>>> Going even further down the techno food chain, you can “send” CW by 
>>> whistling, flashing a lamp, tapping on someone’s leg under a table 
>>> in civics class, or pounding a wrench on the inverted hull of an 
>>> upside-down U.S. war vessel, as happened at Pearl Harbor. Last 
>>> Saturday at an engineering club my son belongs to, a 9-year-old 
>>> demonstrated an Arduino Uno flashing HELLO WORLD in Morse on an LED. 
>>> The other kids were impressed, including my son, who promptly wrote 
>>> a version that sends three independent Morse streams on three LEDs. 
>>> A mini-pileup. His first program.
>>>
>>> Finally, to do CW you don’t always need a computer, keyboard, mouse, 
>>> monitor, or software. Such things are invaluable in our daily lives, 
>>> but for me, shutting down everything but the radio is the high point 
>>> of my day. The small display glows like a mystic portal into my 
>>> personal oyster, the RF spectrum. Unless I crank up the power, 
>>> there’s no fan noise. Tuning the knob slowly from the bottom end of 
>>> the band segment to the top is a bit like fishing my favorite 
>>> stream, Taylor Creek, which connects Fallen Leaf Lake to Lake Tahoe. 
>>> Drag the line across the green, sunlit pool. See what hits. Big 
>>> trout? DX. Small trout? Hey, it’s still a fish, and a QSO across 
>>> town is still a QSO. Admire it, then throw it back in.
>>>
>>> (BTW: You now know why the Elecraft K3, K3S, KX2, and KX3 all have 
>>> built-in RTTY and PSK data modes that allow transmit via the keyer 
>>> paddle and receive on the rig’s display. We decided to make these 
>>> data modes conversational...like CW.)
>>>
>>> Back to 40 meters....
>>>
>>> 73,
>>>
>>> Wayne
>>> N6KR
>>>
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