Monday, Jan. 4, 2016 — I checked into the Georgia Training Net again Sunday evening with Willis, AD4DX as NCS as usual. As Sunday nets go, it was short, not unexpected.
As the net was ending, I heard a station firing up about 800 cycles above us. I slid up the 
band, and listened to an Ohio station sending what was — to me at least — nearly indecipherable CW.
The speed was 15 plus, but I could follow along OK — the problem wasn’t speed, but spacing, or more correctly, the lack thereof.
The spacing wasn’t Farnsworth, Koch or any other scheme known to modern man. This gentleman’s fist — and he was sending with a hand key at that! — left no space between characters or words.
His “CQ” sounded like a prosign from the Cyrillic alphabet — “dah-di-dah-di-dah-dah-di-dah”.
Now admittedly, it isn’t unusual to have someone slur their CQ, or to have a little Lake Erie Swing … no, that just makes it interesting to copy. But this gent ran everything together — prosigns, calls, everything. I was intrigued, and stayed with him long enough to cipher out his callsign. I didn’t stay long enough to see if his CQ was answered, I just knew I wasn’t going to answer it. I may not have the fist I used to have, but at least I add space between my poorly sent characters and words, hi!
I spent more time tuning and reading the mail … I always stop if I hear a signal with some hint of chirp, buzz or other “malady” that “new” rigs don’t have. I’m going to have to put my Heathkit HW-16 on the air, all I need to do is switch the antenna and attach a key.
One of my favorite CW rigs at my desk is the Tempo 2020. It is a hybrid HF rig that includes a mechanical CW filter. I love listening to it … even lightning crashes sound pleasant, hi. I have “stuff” piled on the desk in front of it, so I need to move/file/store that stuff and put the 2020 on the air. It’s just too sweet a rig to let sit idle.
Work awaits me, I best get busy.
73 es CUL de KY4Z SK … dit dit …