Cw

This was my third year of the “Twelve Days of QRZ” event that runs from December 1 through the end of February. The object is to have QSLs, that is, confirmation of radio contact, either on QRZ or Logbook of the Web, on twelve separate days. It is pretty easy to get the base award, especially via digital contacts, and I did that 12 days after getting a new antenna launched after the bomb cyclone had knocked it out of the tree. (It took a while to clear out debris so I could do that.) ...

Before I forget, I wanted to jot down some notes about the Parks on the Air exercises I just did in Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Final statistics: Iceland: 11 parks activated (9 the first time anyone had), 382 QSOs, 277 confirmed (as of writing) for 41 countries. For the Faroe Islands, 172 QSOs, 121 confirmed, 37 countries. I also found my 10,000th geocache. Pre-trip preparation Paperwork. The ARRL is a starting point for US hams operating internationally, but their site is primarily a collection of links to documents you’re supposed to pore through and understand. The material can be exceptionally boring (T/R 61-01 zzzzzzz). The Iceland club had a nice summary, only lacking a specific link to the permit needed. (The permit was free, and quickly obtained.) There was a club for Faroe Islands, but it and the Danish authority were challenging to browse with Google Translate. I was unable to find anything specific, and hoped it wouldn’t be a big deal. Equipment optimizationthrough Trial POTA activations*.*This was also an opportunity to work out kinks with my laptop, re-familiarized myself with the KX3, tried different antenna options, and set up a flow for logging. Identify potential POTA sites. Logging is complicated. I had a TF/WT8P from last year, and added OY/WT8P, which was “announced” and led to conversations with DX Daily (who publishes information about DX operations) and a ham who offered to manage sending paper QSL cards. ...

I wrapped up another field day with my friend Paul (W7PEZ) in Eastern Washington. For the two days, I had 204 contacts, broken out roughly as: Yes, I worked SSB. It was kinda Frankfurt United Norway WT8P is sporting the 6-day salt and pepper look Paul worked 200 contacts, nearly all CW. Both are personal records. Neither of us were “running,” which would certainly have bumped up the totals, nor did we operate all the time, because most of the fun of Field Day is Everything Else. ...

During the latter part of my Basic class, when students were becoming more engaged, we ran into several problems with the email and text messaging. As an experiment, we used Slack in my intermediate class the most recent term. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive. In the spirit of trying to give back, I thought it would be helpful relating our experience. 73, Jim WT8P Email works for some specific situations such as contacting the entire class and sharing detailed information. There were occasions where my missives were too long and detailed. Some email clients (e.g., Outlook) make it difficult to find messages. Email is poor for any real-time event, such as a student who was on the air right now and looking for contacts. ...

There is also a walkthrough of N1MM+ here that I did for my intermediate class earlier this week. Some definitions CW– stands for continuous wave, a simple method of communication where a signal is either on or off. It uses Morse Code, consisting of dots, dashes, and spaces. A dot is a tone emitted for one time-unit, a dash is a tone emitted for three-time-units. Spaces between dots and dashes, letters, and words are one, three and seven time-units, respectively. WPM– words per minute is a gauge of how fast one is communicating. For Morse code, we typically use the word “Paris” (.–. .- .-. .. …) as the standard “unit.” As a comparison, I can write about 15 words per minute, type about 70 wpm. CWT– is CWOps‘ CW contest held 3x a week, on Wednesdays at 1300Z, 1900Z, +0300Z. It’s a one-hour contest where the average communication speed is well-above 25 wpm. N1MM+ – this is a popular amateur radio contest logging program. KX3 – Elecraft’s all-mode transceiver. Thus, this blog entry covers how to use the N1MM+ software while participating in the weekly CWT contest. N1MM+ can be used for a variety of other events, not exclusively CWT or even Morse Code. ...

Sending in-class: Compose two “Dad Jokes” to send. For example: “Two guys stole a calendar. They got six months each.” (Or: “What do you do with an elephant with three balls? Walk him and pitch to the rhino.”) We’ll practice more sending of longer passages. Revisit the Wikipedia front page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page and pick a couple of items from Did you know… or On this Day — there is an extensive “Archive” link that will add variety — and summarize them for sending via CW. We’ll probably only have time for one, but in case we can do another, let’s do. We’ll do an exercise where you’ll call a classmate on Zoom, ask a simple question, they’ll reply, then onto the next classmate. Suggested subject areas: weather, HF rig, antenna, dinner, car, next vacation destination. The added variety is listening for your call sign and sending a classmate’s. If you are unable to copy, send a ? for resend. An exchange might look like this: W7PEZ de WT8P what is your rig?My rig is icom ic7300 WS6Y de W7PEZ how big is hexbeam?The hexbeam is 5280 feet. KJ7IZT de WS6Y … ...

We’re at the two-thirds/homestretch-ish point in the class. The speed creeps up 1 wpm for each the next few sessions, eventually hitting 13. Remember the overall goals are: having fun, making friends, and picking up a new skill for a lifetime. Absent from these goals is “beating yourself up because you didn’t hit flawless 13wpm on the nanosecond the 13wpm session started.” Learning CW takes time. The CW Academy classes have a very ambitious pace for learning a new skill. It’s rare that everyone lands on the same point. So, relax, relish how far you’ve come(*), and, please, proceed at your own pace. (*If you’d like some perspective, retry the self-assessment tool – scroll down about halfway: and see how far you’ve progressed.) … but not as much time as it’s going to clean my “office” when the Pandemic is over ...

For Session 8 sending in class: What are your three most valued (to you) household appliances and/or power tools? (e.g., KitchenAid mixer, coffee grinder, and cordless drill) This weekend are two additional possible contact events for QSOs: CQ Magazine World-Wide CW sprint on 160m – The exchange is simply a signal report of 5NN and your state. Based on my hour last night, there were a lot of potential CA and WA contacts. (I could hear a few AZ/UT, but they could not hear me, which is a summary of my experience on 160m.) Look from 1.81 – 1.90 MHz. ...

As we all have felt, it’s quite normal to feel self-induced pressure at not maintaining perfection and, God forbid, be tempted to drop out and do it another time. A better way of looking at it is “if you stick around, will you be further along in your CW journey (and knowledge of Scottish inventions)?” Obviously, the answer is yes (though I’m biased :). And, as a bonus, you get to hang out with a great group of fellow hams, have fun and improve your skills. (Consider how much you’ve progressed in a short time!) I’ve found the sweet spot is to shoot for about 80% of the homework, on average. Sometimes you’ll be rocking it, sometimes it’ll feel not, but overall, you’re making good progress and friends. ...

Sessions 4 and 5 repeat the prior sessions, but bump up the Farnsworth speed to 5 then 6. It doesn’t look like a lot until you’re trying to listen! As I mentioned, it’s very common to feel an adrenaline bump when it’s your turn to send. If you mess up, or are feeling flustered, take a deep breath, send eight dits, take another breath, and start the word again (unless it’s like the last letter that would be understandable from context). Add more spacing if you like. Just remember, you’re among friends and it’s all about having fun. ...