GW/NW-044 - My First CW Activation - 2026-02-14

Activation Reports
1

I have wanted to learn CW for a couple of years, and started learning the characters using LWCO.net, but although I learned all the characters pretty well, I never made the jump to actually start using CW on air. Last September I attended the G-QRP club buildathon and convention, and met with Enzo and Paul. Their recommendation to me was straight forward - join the CW Academy, and learn your CW craft there. So I enrolled on the winter Fundamental course, led by Buzz Tarlow, AC6AC. Although the course started on the 20th January, the pre-course started in early December. I can’t recommend this course enough - as well as having a comprehensive homework program, Buzz (as lead Advisor) delivers a presentation/discussion twice a week, on a range of relevant topics. I made my first CW QSO a couple of weeks back in the CWT “contest” run by the CWOps organisation, and today I made my first CW activation.

Moel Famau, GW-NW-044 is my local summit, and part of the Clwydian Range of summits (I think 5 SOTA summits in all). I took up my KX3, and a random wire antenna (Sotabeams Bandspringer?). I used this a few days ago when I managed to break my EFHW bullet connector off, and I was pleasantly surprised by its capability. It also has a much smaller footprint than the EFHW, and as today was the first day with blue skies and sunshine, I expected the summit to be quite busy (it’s a walk up summit visited my many people each year).

After setting up, I switched the radio on and set up POLO as a logger. I then saw Juerg was spotted in Wildspitz (HB/ZG-001), so I put out a S2S call. I fumbled my reference a few times, but did get it out in the end. At this point, I hadn’t spotted myself, so it was doubly important to get the reference right! Thanks for your patience @HB9BIN !

I then spotted myself, and got my exchange cheat sheet ready. The first call which came back was Marek @SP9TKW. Marek is a friend and colleague on the CWAcademy course, and he had picked me up on the RBN without realising I was activating. So of course he didn’t follow any “standard” exchange for SOTA, which did cause me some confusion! I then had QSOs with 9 more very patient hunters - many thanks to you all for your tolerance of my sending!

It was an amazing experience, and I am looking forward to getting up another summit soon and doing it all again!

Operating position:

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Looking South - down range:

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73, Paul, MW7PAJ

32 Likes
2

Well done Paul! It can take a lot of courage to go for it. Kudos for going straight in with a S2S QSO. I used to find them a bit scary!

Looking forward to having a CW S2S one day soon!

73, Matthew

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3

Well done Paul, it was great to make QSO. Sorry about confusion. As you said I seen your RBN spot and didnot realize you were doing SOTA activation.

Once weather gets midler in SP Land I plan start activating in CW too. I think I am ready to it. So I hope before year ends we will have couple S2S in the log book.

GL 73 Marek

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Brilliant Paul, well done. I’ll always remember my debut CW activation in 2007. It was an exhilarating - and ultimately addictive experience!

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5

Good job today Paul, some chasers don’t quite get the meaning of QRS.

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6

Superb! Really well done and keep going on the journey. I can probably understand how you felt as last weekend I managed my first 99.9% CW POTA activation which carried on for 3 consecutive days at 3 different parks.

Wrote about my experience here if you wish to see how it went:

I think once you get over that hurdle of fright to call CQ, you’ve broken the seal and there’s no going back. It’s addictive isn’t it?!

Congratulations again! Hope to work you on CW soon.

72 DE EI3LH :blush: :+1:

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7

Well done for breaking the ice. It is a thrill to do something new like that. And believe me, it gets easier the more you do it. Do it regularly and you will be handling your first CW pile-up before long.

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8

Congrats Paul! That’s the most nerve racking one done!

I try to remember to put the summit ref into the keyer memory. Makes S2S much easier!

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9

Congratulations Paul. Well done for starting with S2S - you are both a chaser and an activator making it doubly hard!

If you alert before your activation you will get an automatic spot from RBNHole so you won’t need to self spot which is particularly useful if you don’t have mobile coverage on the summit.

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10

Well done on this one Paul, especially as you are relatively new to the mode. It should get easier from now on and as you get more confident the enjoyment will come.

73, Gerald

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That’s a good idea! Thanks!

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I haven’t pre-alerted before when using ssb, and in fact I did nearly miss an activation last year when I had no coverage on the hill. I will do this on the next outing.

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Congratulations on doing your first CW activation. Like Tom, I can clearly remember the first time I called CQ SOTA.

You will find many CW chasers will realise you are a newcomer and will adapt to how you are working. As the late Roy G4SSH told me “people don’t really care if you are slow, ask for repeats etc. as they just want the points”. But in reality so many of the chasers will offer great encouragement to a new CW activator.

Do make sure you place alerts as that way you benefit from being spotted RBNhole so it doesn’t matter if there is cell coverage etc. All you need to do is call CQ nice and cleanly for the skimmers to decode you. If you call CQ using a keyer etc. then that is guaranteed.

It gets easier the more you do it. Get planning the next CW activation now :slight_smile:

6 Likes
14

Thank you for writing down your experience, it is very helpful, as I’m on a similar journey, only earlier. I have been learning the code using the Morse Mania app, but then I found out about the CW Academy from the DitDit.fm podcast and I signed up for it, as everyone is praising it. The first available slot was May-June, so until then I will be practicing on my own, but I’m looking forward to the day when I will be able to do a CW activation.

3 Likes
15

May will be here quite quickly, and also on the course I am on, we had 10 pre-course sessions which started early in December, so if your Lead Coordinator does the same thing, you might find yourself starting in April. I am not in a place to advise, because I am not qualified enough to do so, but based on what I have done so far, keep going with the Morse Mania App, and consider trying LCWO.net as well. Make a point of having a character speed of more than 20wpm, but then use a Farnsworth speed you can cope with. If the character speed is too slow, there can apparently be a tendency to count the dits and dahs which will really hold you back in the future. The goal is to learn the sound! If you are practising everyday, you might find you can go on the fundamental course rather than the beginners course. Once you start the course, there will also be an opportunity to move from one to the other.

Best of luck with your CW journey, and I hope to catch you in the log in the future!

73, Paul

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Indeed, as you said, the course started early, without warning :slight_smile: we had our first Meet and Greet yesterday. The sign-up test assigned me to the fundamental course, so that’s what I’m taking.

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Great! Are you with Buzz Tarlow, AC6AC then? I started the Intermediate course yesterday, also with Buzz.

You will enjoy it very much - if I can support you in any way, please don’t hesitate to ask!

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The main advisor is Buzz, but for my Fundamental group we have Mishel Pavlovski Z31PM as the advisor.

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