I’ve been a near 100% CW operator for over 40 years and would like to offer my opinion. Through the '60s, '70s, '80s and even into the '90s, CW operating skills generally improved or at least didn’t deteriorate. The Morse end of the bands was where you went to avoid the often poor operating found in the 'phone segments. Sadly I have witnessed a profound deterioration in CW operating skills over the past few years. I think, at risk of being a little contentious, there are several factors at work here:
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The ME! society. People want it and they want it now. They are no longer willing to wait for a while and get it later. We see this in all walks of life.
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The availability of technology. Nowadays you can, in theory, “copy” CW without knowing a single dit of Morse code. CW readers, Skimmer and other toys (for that is what they are) provide an apparent solution to those that cannot or will not learn the code.
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Fewer people on HF have CW skills. Not so long ago you couldn’t operate on HF unless you had passed at least a 12WPM Morse test. There are some good CW operators who never passed a Morse test but they are the exception. Similarly there are plenty who did pass their Morse test, then never used Morse ever again. They don’t generally turn up in the CW pileups though.
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General relaxation, especially in recent years, of the standards and commitment required to become a radio amateur.
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Fewer people go through the “apprenticeship” of listening for a few years before getting a license. Time was when the newbie Radio Amateur already knew all about operating etiquette. These days people jump straight in with their nice new call signs.
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PacketCluster. Marvellous though PacketCluster is, it concentrates the pileup. The same criticism can be equally applied to SOTAWatch. Everyone arrives on frequency at the same time, making the pileup more ferocious. Just as heavy traffic brings out the worst in people’s driving, so deep pileups seem to encourage poor operating.
What are the solutions? Theoretically there are many, practically I fear there are few.
SPLIT OPERATION. DXpeditions, faced with the same sort of problems (lots of callers, unruly pileups) use split operation and this helps enormously. But split operation depends on the fact that there are many callers and very few DXpeditions. If there are several SOTA stations then by the time even a modest split has been applied, say 500Hz for each activator, large chunks of spectrum are being used, which for the actual level of activity is probably unacceptable, especially to those that are not chasing SOTA stations. That said, if I get a decent pileup going then I will always consider going split, even if only for a few minutes.
EDUCATION. It would be nice to think we could educate people on how to operate. My long experience has been that the sort of people who wilfully operate badly, members of the Me! society and the short-cut merchants who use technology instead of their ears simply aren’t listening.
SANCTIONS. They never work. In Amateur Radio or in other walks of life.
NAME AND SHAME. Divisive, counter-productive, creates bad feeling. One man’s bad operating is another man’s sporty pileup. Who judges what constitutes bad operating?
COMMUNITY/PEER PRESSURE. Perhaps this might stand a chance. SOTA is a tight knit community, in part because of the SOTAWatch facility. There can be few who are active in the programme, whether chaser or activator, who are not also users of this facility.
You won’t hear G3WGV on the air very much these days. One of the reasons is the way that the CW end of the bands, for so long the home of civilised and skilled operating, is no longer the place it used to be.
73, John
G3WGV, N3GV