It's hard to believe that we are 3 months into 2022, winter should soon be on its way out and the warm summer breezes will soon be greeting us. I ended 2021 with a year in review post. In this post, my 2021 goals were to get less FT8 contact and more CW contacts. Not that I have an issue with FT8 but I did find I was paying way too much attention to this mode and my CW skills suffered. The plan was to shore up my CW skills, get into more CW contests and increase my CW contacts.
As far as the past three months go my CW contest copying skill has gone from an average of 22 wpm to 36 wpm and 38 with some repeats. This was accomplished with daily practice of about 30-50 mins. Taking part in weekly CWops mini-contests on Wednesdays. In these contests I operate search and pounce as at this point calling CQ in this fast-paced contest is not in the cards as of yet. On Friday evenings K1USN radio club runs a slow-speed CW contest or SST as they call it. It is a slow speed contest but practice is practice and in this contest, I hold a frequency and call CQ SST for contacts.
I am very pleased with the first 3 months of 2022, my CW contacts almost match the number for all of 2021! I am very happy with my increase in CW copying and my move away from FT8 and more CW. In the chart above from Club log it does show for 2022 a certain percentage for phone operation. Well, I don't have a mic in the shack and I am figuring my logging program logs the occasional QSO as SSB. It has done this in the past and this year I may not have caught this before uploading a log.
4 comments:
Hi Mike, you are doing well. I wanted to do that too, because I notice that my CW skills suffer from doing too much FT8 again. The problem is I don't like contesting. And outside the contests there is too little CW activity. What you do, practicing more than 45 minutes a day, is the right method to learn it well. I admire your perseverance. 73 Paul
Good morning Paul and very nice to hear from you, yes it does help that I like contesting as I have for the weekend a captive crowd of CW operators. As for the practice time I do try my best to get on the radio each day and practice for my time slot. As life would have it there have been things that have come up. Yesterday for example I was just starting to practice when Julie called me and the cable TV was acting up. After 1 hours with chat help all was well again but my practice time faded for that day. Also sometimes I notice that if I skip a day here and there it does help with my learning curve to just get a break.
Also if I sit down at the radio and it's just one of those day and I am just making silly mistakes I just stop for the day. I figure it's best to do this as I would just have frustration settle in.
73 and have a good week Paul,
Mike
VE9KK
Hi Mike, that's interesting but not surprising. Despite people trying to convince me to learn Morse Code, I know that it's not just the battle to learn a new language, but an effort to RETAIN that new language. I guess it's like having a "holiday language" such as Italian - fine as long as you spend a lot of time in Italy, lol. As you said, regular contesting helps for sure.
I have a good friend who has been an avid CW operator all his life and now he's in his 70's he's losing dexterity in his hand and he told me last week that he's even starting to lose his 'ear'. Such a shame because he's always been passionate about it.
Take care Mike, 73, Tom M7MCQ.
Good morning Tom, it's very true it's like learning a new language. I have found in the past that if you don't use it you loose it. I know many ham when the code was a requirement for your ticket they did learn the code. But once the ticket was obtained the code was never used again and forgotten.
As for old age yes I too would find it great loss to not be able to use CW. I am hoping before my time comes good old technology will have come up with something.
73 and have a good rest of the week Tom,
Mike
VE9KK
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