Hooray - made my first activation using CW! G/SE-003

Activation Reports
21

Thanks very much and I like your rules! :+1:

Hope to work you soon. 73…

1 Like
22

Thanks Mark.

Yes, I found the same! Once I started calling I actually felt quite calm. One piece of advice I would give to any fellow newcomers is to not be afraid to dial back the speed a few WPM from what you might think is your maximum when practicing at home. I found that my perception of speed was completely different in the field compared to using practice apps with no pressure at home.

Hope to work you soon & 73…

1 Like
23

Cheers Simon!

5 definitely felt enough for me to feel satisfied without getting frazzled for my first cw activation!

Hope to work you soon from a summit.

73, Matthew

24

Congrats. CW has two big advantages for SOTA. No need to feel embarrassed shouting into a microphone. And the spots are automatic thanks to the RBN (assuming you alerted).

3 Likes
25

Thank you and agree!

26

And one more not less important, signals travel further, cleaner and are easierly received while using a narrower bandwidth.

3 Likes
27

An extremely important point! A good deal of my amateur radio operating is with low-ish power and/or compromised antennas. Since getting into cw, I have had much better success making contacts. I remember when I first got licensed around 5 years ago I had many experienced hams telling me that, “you should try cw - you’ll have much better results”. Shamefully in my head I was thinking, “yeah, yeah - change the record”. But they were right!!

4 Likes
28

…another one: you can still activate if you get hoarseness after a strong cold :laughing:

4 Likes
29

… you can even eat while activating :wink:

6 Likes
30

that is why 79 % of my QSOs logged in 2019, 2020 & 2021 are CW (10692 from 13543)
16 % are FM (2180 from 13543)
5 % are SSB (671 from 13543)

Just for knowledge broadening does anybody know how is the percentage for whole SOTA logs ?
Thanks in advance :wink:

73, Jarek

2 Likes
31

Activator QSOs by Mode

CW : 3061145
SSB : 2520375
FM : 1248826
Data : 32145
DV : 2242
AM : 1943
Other : 1834
4 Likes
32

Many thanks Andy !

73, Jarek