Encouraging newcomers is an essential part of this hobby. Yesterday I had the enormous pleasure in having a CW contact with Helen M0YHB for the 1st time. Helen had called me once before but we were unable to complete that QSO. With conditions not being brilliant, the chasing pack was quite subdued and Helen called me before things really got going. I haven’t checked the database but I’m hoping I can claima that I am Helen’s first SOTA CW contact. I’ll be gutted if I’m not.
Keep up the practice Helen. I inserted some gaps between the chars but don’t be afraid to send “PSE QRS” or ask for repeats. Above all, don’t worry what anyone else thinks about your sending or copying during your first attempts on air. I don’t care and you should hear the junk I send. Hopefully, you’ll become a regular chaser in my CW log, both from your QTH and S2S.
Great stuff Helen. You don’t need Andy advising you to ‘keep up the practice’. SOTA+CW is such an addictive combination that you’ll just want more and more.
sorry I think you are my third CW contact (Robert and John being the previous ones of which I am sure I have logged at least one) but you are my first CW contact on to a Scotish hill!
I will keep at it although time is the main issue. I do still need the gaps to process the dits and dahs and then there is the whole other language to learn…
Be gentle with me and I will try to make QSOs with summits when I am available. Who knows, one day I may actually try to activate a summit on CW!
Do that now Helen, it is the best way to make progress! Best thing I ever did was have the bare-faced cheek to start doing HF CW SOTA activations at 10wpm…
In reply to M0YHB:
keep at it and it’ll be like falling off a log before you know it, best thing you will ever have on a summit is the use of CW in your armoury… besides that its great fun too…
It was very nice to work you on Sunday, when conditions on 5MHz were very poor. It was extremely nice to hear Helen working you, along with other much more experienced CW operators. Conditions weren’t as bad as a couple of weekends ago when a CME had flattened HF completely, but it was real struggle working you on SSB for once. Thankfully there was just enough of the sky working on Sunday or I have a feeling that both you & Paul GM4MD/P on holiday up in GM/NS, would have had a pretty miserable day.
Keep up the CW Helen, you will get quicker with practice & once you reach the stage where it just “clicks” it just gets easier from then on.
