I was taught “The circuit is only as fast as the slowest operator”.
Lanny W5BOS
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I do it this way: /qrp? like I ask for /p? or fragments of a callsign abc?
73 Armin
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Nop. I tried many times to edit the extra ¨dot¨ and when I saved the edition nothing changed.
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Multiple dots are treated as an ellipsis by the software. You need to mark the text as formatted so the software doesn’t format it. Use the back tick or back apostrophe around the text
Back tick or back apostrophe = `
Surrounding dots and dashes for U gives ..-
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Well I didn´t know this. So, It wasn´t a mistake of my QRQ.
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As someone with limited CW skills and a small number of activations, I have been pleasantly surprised by the patience of the chasers. It is always exciting for me to hear a call from outside the US though it often confuses me for a moment (I am getting better). Poor Guru had to repeat several times for me as I tried to process a call that started dit dit-dah!
So thanks to all the chasers all putting up with me; from my perspective things are not bad at all.
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Neither did I till I did some digging. A lot of the automatic features are really cool and useful, just sometimes they can get it the way of what you are trying to achieve.
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Don’t you just love self-incorrecting software!
I once worked with a fella named Skelly whose name was almost invariably rendered as Smelly in any electronic communication 
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Others may find otherwise, but in a pile-up, I can usually recognize the call sign which is sent a little slower than the rest. If you’re a little slower and a little lower pitch, you stand out to my ear.
I practice at 20 WPM and activate at 15; when someone replies at 5 WPM faster than me, I can still make out his call sign. If I hear someone transmitting at 30+ WPM, I might assume I’m sharing a frequency with another conversation and go looking for a free frequency. Or, if I’m feeling cranky, I’ll ignore the noise until it goes away.
I used to be working toward higher speeds, but since SOTA activations are the only operating I do, I eventually figured out that I’d always be a 15-20 WPM operator.
I used to thing that “real operators” could pick out all of the call signs in a pile up. Now, I just wait for the chasers to sort it out. Eventually, someone will send when others don’t.
I intend to end my sessions by calling CQ a few times at about 10 WPM, to be beginner-friendly, but I often forget.
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I think he meant “BTU”, (Back To U). I don’t know where that one
came from? Never heard of it until recent years. First time I saw it
was on PSK31. A lot of lids on that mode! I’ve been a CW op for over 60 years.
JOhn, K6YK
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That was also my guess, but I’ve never heard such. Only BK (back) and TU (Thank yoU)
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I notice a lot of you are saying that BTU should not be used or have not come across it being used. I find this strange as when being taught cw at school in 1962 BTU was used as saying “Back to you”.
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Indeed, I was taught BTU and I still use it in conversational CW QSOs just before passing the transmission back, as in …so BTU G9XYZ de G4OIG AR K
I must say, I don’t really see that it has much use for the average SOTA CW QSO, as indeed neither has “di dah di dah di dah”. 
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Thank gawd someone remembers it. Good on ya Gerald
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OK Guys,
Honestly I’ve never heard anybody send BTU on CW until recently.
And “BK” used to mean “Break”, but I guess as years go by, these
old CW abbreviations change a bit. I also notice that many of the
CW ops don’t know what a lot of the “common” Q-signals mean.
This is the kind of stuff they need to have on the ham test instead of
engineer level theory and math… Maybe some of the American hams
can comment on that subject.
73,
John, K6YK
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Seems, from what I’ve seen else-Net (e.g. a long thread titled “Newbies please stop using…” in the “Straight Keys” section of the QRZ forum) to be one of those things some folk are happy enough to use and others hate.
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I learned as a new cw operator in the mid 60s, that there were two ways of conducting a QSO, remaining legal (id etc). I will take the liberty of using EA2IF as my contact in these examples. Both follow a CQ call that is answered by EA2IF.
- The full format.
EA2IF de VK1DA GM Guru ur 599 599 hw? Ea2if de vk1da K (or kn)
VK1DA de EA2IF GE Andrew ur 599 599 Tnx qso vk1da de ea2if K (or KN)
EA2IF de VK1DA tnx QSO 73 GL EA2IF de VK1DA SK
- The Break-in (QSK) format:
EA2IF de VK1DA GM Guru UR 599 599 BK
BK de Ea2IF RR GE Andrew UR 599 599 BK
BK de VK1DA RR tnx QSO GL 73 SK
E E
The E E was a short hand version of QSL, CFM, SK rolled into one acknowledgement. (I believe it was originally the “two bits” reply to the rhythmical “shave and a haircut” using just dits for each beat. Bands used to sign off each dance number with this little thing. )
Note that the reply after BK was to give one’s own callsign. But this is rarely done now.
Since then I have noticed a corrupted form of the BK version in use.
EA2IF de VK1DA GM UR 599 599 BK
RRR tnx UR 599 599 tnx QSO 73 BK
RR GL 73 SK
E E
And some operators don’t indicate who they are giving the report to:
After being called by a thousand stations:
UR 599 BK
How useless. It is vital for the callsign being worked to be stated. And in a very noisy situation, even give it when passing it back.
For example
EA2IF de vk1da ur 599 599 ea2if BK
(And then there is the dxpedition form:
Dx: Ea2if 599
EA2IF: RR 599 TU
DX: TU
Every now and then the dx station sends his own call again… )
And an even further corruption, same as above but with each operator sending EE after their final transmission, completely corrupting the meaning of EE as a shorthand acknowledgement. So we hear SK EE and GL 73 EE etc all sent by each station. Whereas it was originally sent only by one station as a shorthand signoff.
Progress and evolution, or corruption? Some say that as long as the meaning is clear, it is ok. But I think if my 1965 operator was to listen to the bands today, he would be confused. Meaning has been lost quite apart from traditional (legal) exchange formats.
As for speed, it was always considered poor operating to send at higher speed than the other operator. And if the other operator slows down, or gives you a low signal report, slow down more. They are having trouble copying you. Do you want the contact or not? Help them to complete the contact.
My two bits… so to speak…
73 Andrew VK1DA/VK2UH
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This. This a million zillion times.
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That is very much like Facebook! Why do people attempt to impose THEIR preferences upon others?
BTU has, as far as I am aware, always been understood by those that I have had QSOs with, as a means of letting to them know that I am passing transmission to them. When it is sent to me, it is the cue to put my pencil down and prepare to key. I personally find this to be polite etiquette and a useful aid for a relaxed QSO. I guess those that hate its use have no time for etiquette and probably don’t have time for many other things in life.
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AFAIK, British Thermal Units are obsolete! (Sorry, couldn’t resist) Anyway, I have a 1994 edition of the RSGB Handbook which includes a long list of CW abbreviations (some of which seem quite esoteric!) and it does not include BTU, so I have learned something today.
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