Happy Thanksgiving! Since our family get-together is this evening, I've been fooling around in the shack.
I was tuning across 40 CW a little while ago and ran across a Michigan station calling CQ. I recognized this guy's fist, and it wasn't pretty.
This guy exaggerates the dahs when he sends, making it more work to copy his fist than really should be needed. For example, the number “8” in his callsign should be sent:
Da-da-dah-di-dit
It was sent instead as:
Da-da-daaaaah-di-dit
The exaggerated dah is nearly three times as long as the normal dah in the rest of his characters. I tuned up slightly off his frequency and was ready to answer his call when a 2-lander signing as portable 4 beat me to it.
The 2-call guy was sending impeccable CW, very easy stuff to copy. I thought that perahps the 8-lander's fist would change once he got into a QSO, thinking that perhaps he had this rather odd Lake Erie swing to his fist as a way to perhaps attract attention. He was also sending “CQ SKCC,” indicating he was hoping to work someone else using a straight key or bug.
I copied the mail for a time, and the 8-lander's CW was filled with elongated dahs. For example, every letter L was sent as “dit-daaaah-di-dit” and R was simply “di-daaaaah-dit.”
He was sending about 13-15 wpm, which wouldn't have been a problem in most instances. Sigs were strong, the band was good. I spun the VFO after a few minutes, his copy was too much mental work to be enjoyable.
I shouldn't throw rocks at other guys' fist, mine's nothing that great either. But I think it has less “swing” and I hope is easier copy.
Speaking of CW, I had a guy walk up to me and compliment my fist at the Richmond, Ky. hamfest. The young man is had a KI4 prefix, probably had his ticket a couple of years. He was monitoring the Kentucky Slow Net on an evening when I checked it, and he stopped me to compliment my fist. I'm happy if anyone can copy it, particularly using a bug. One of the best compliments I received came earlier this year. During a chat with another CW op, I mentioned I was using a bug. He was surprised to hear it, probably for two reasons — first, its not sending dits at 40 wpm, and second, its adjusted for somewhere between 13 and 18 wpm. That's still fast for the “slow” net, but increasing the spacing between characters works fine.
I have to wonder if anyone is learning CW these days. Like lots of “old” skills, its something that will be us a long time as more of an art form than anything else. In fact, I probably should be tuning across 40 again instead of writing about it. Can't operate much CW in front of a computer screen.
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Speaking of old stuff, I'm considering putting together a W8JK array for 10 through 20 meters. It offers good gain and its bi-directional. I'm not sure of the beam heading, but Europe would be tempting. Asia and the South Pacific would be good as well. W8JK used the array all the way to 6 meters with good results, though the pattern would have to have some deep nulls in some directions.
Another idea — perhaps when the sunspots start returning — is a phased vertical array on 10. When I lived in the first house we owned, the carport was a monster — 50 feet long and 12 feet wide — and I had really wanted to use that for mounting some phased verticals for 10 meters. I never tried that simply because an all band dipole and lots of sunspots made it unnecessary to have something with gain.
It's nearing to to leave for the in-laws, so I'll sign off for now. 73!