Thanks a mil! I tried all Sunday to get my first CW QSO but I made a balls of it. Had an SP callsign try to answer my CQ calls but I said QRS about 8 jillion times and he/she/they gave up and moved on!
Have a QMX ordered for months now so can’t wait for that. Won’t ever give up my FT-891 though. I’m being buried with it!
I’m determined to get there. Wasn’t the chasers fault, I just couldn’t copy. It’s so different live on air and I panicked. Kept trying but had to QRT eventually.
Might try again this weekend if I can get out to try an activation.
Anyone looking for study tips, I mainly used the paid version of Morse Mania on Android and the LCWO Website.
I have a straight key from Amazon and a Putikeeg silver paddle thing from Ali Express.
If I win the Euromillions I’ll buy a Begali, the Rolls Royce of CW keys apparently!?
It certainly is different live! I remember using a PC program called morse runner (I think) which is a pile-up simulator for contests. It does a good job of varying the speed and pitch of the callers which is good practice for real life operating.
This weekend is the CQWW CW contest. Even if you hate contests it’s a great way of practising sending and receiving. You only need to be able to send your callsign and 5nn14 (that’s the CQ zone at the end).
Is there nothing more formal, like a normal CW QSO?
Or is it CONTESTCS DE EI3LH 5NN14 CONTESTNUMBER?
I never take part in contests. They seem to be super fast, blunt and smothered by people with 487 gigawatt stations with Yagi towers taller than the Burj Khalifa screaming at each other and stuff.
I’d sooner hop on 80m and have an argument with a gatekeeper about who has the worst gout.
Try SOTA chasing in CW, this is how I did my first CW QSOs. It will also help you become familiar with how an activator handles pile-ups. It can be frustrating with QRP but wait for things to quieten down then jump in and send your callsign once followed by K (what I do) or BK if you prefer.
But… don’t do what so many people do call CQ faster than you can receive when starting out. If you call CQ at 15wpm but can only copy 10wpm people will reply faster than you can copy and tears before bedtime results.
If you can only do 10wpm then call at that speed… people will know to slow down and they wont tell you they live in Mississippi and grow Chrysanthemums and Rhododendrons for a hobby but they will be simple and say they live in MS and grow flowers.
Don’t send a K. In this context it’s not necessary.
One of the worst things I hear on the air is
G9ABC G9ABCK
You should only send your call once. The K isn’t needed and running it into the end of the callsign can be confusing if copy is poor.
On the other hand, another bad thing I hear is
CQ SOTA G9ABC
In this case there should be a K at the end. I don’t know if they’ve finished sending or not as CQ calls often send the call several times or could even include the reference.
Congratulations on the new call sign. I hope that you call in during my winter activations. A call sign and a simple signal report is all I need. A 73 to finish.
Yes, working CW live can be very nerve-wracking. I find that sometimes I’m called by people whom I would consider to be friends and I want to say so much to them but then I get in a real mess! The genuine pleasure of the friend calling in upsets my flow. It’s just a weird characteristic that I’ve developed. To combat this, I keep my interactions short, which possibly seems a little rude, but I hope that my ‘friends’ understand. ‘Friends’ because some of them I’ve only met on air.
I’d suggest listening - and listening and more listening to exchanges between hams on the air. You’ll achieve a number of things`;-
Listen, listen and more listening on air and reading morse through static and/or interference aswell as learning that not all morse is sent correctly but you’ll get better.
You’ll listen and learn how people exchange information and what the general procedure is. You’ll start to learn what people are likely to send.
As you start to see a pattern in what people do and send you’ll gain more confidence to get out your key and start.
Write stuff down if you need to.
Practice sending morse - its far quicker and easier to send slower morse at100% accuracy than sending faster morse with errors in it.
Write a crib sheet out with what you are likely to say - or at least the main points:
: RST …(Name) OP IAN, QTH DUBLIN RIG ICOM199.B WX SUNNY …etc., etc., dd
Begali keys… I think I’d call them ‘click bait’ for many hams. Bright, shiney and expensive. Oh, and not brilliant keys. I’d not buy one.
Military keys are generally very good. They were built to be used and abused. For activating I use a very small Russian army key known as a ‘spy key’ because its on the tiny side. Its not quite as nice to use as the Navy key but no matter how much you spend on a key you won’t find you can suddenly send better morse. It just feels nicer to use…But you are unlikely to notice the difference at the moment.
A bit like learning to drive. You only notice the different comfort, driving/handling capabilities and performance difference is cars when you;ve been driving for a while.
Sacrilege!! As the great Christopher Lambert once said in Highlander…
“There can be only one.”
That honour belongs (imho) to the legendary FT-891. Built like a Cromer Shirehorse, as attractive as an airport duty free Toblerone, more menus than a Chinese takeaway and designed with more love than British Leyland’s art department.
If Carlsberg made radios…
Sage advice though and all noted and taken on board.
My Rig is a rather elderly Ten-Tec Argosy. I don’t really ‘follow’, or have an interest in rigs, so I just made up the model name/number in para 6. Is there such a radio? I have no idea.
Good luck with the morse. Don’t give in - many hams seem to give up too soon. I spent ages and ages listening to hams before I braved myself for my 1st QSO. And I was an RO in the Royal Navy, although rather a long time ago!!!