If I were starting out today, I think I would go straight to
paddles. Forget the straight key, bug, whatever. Straight to
paddles. I would still be learning about spacing, but not having
to haul needless baggage from one type of key to the next. One
of the biggest turnoffs to operating CW is having to use a
straight key. It's like having to do the MS150 (150 mile bike
ride from Houston-Austin) on a tricycle. I can remember the sore
wrist and arm muscles, the tenseness, my fist going to heck in a
handbasket before I could turn it back to the other guy. Phooey
on that....give me paddles.
When people learn to fly, they don't start out in gliders (at
least not if their goal is to get a powered flight license).
They learn in powered aircraft.
Listening around on the bands is good. So is a good CW program
that offers coded groups that do not repeat. Topped off with a
slew of CW QSO's each week, one's speed should pick up pretty
quickly. It's been years since I have checked it (maybe I'll do
it soon), but the CW traffic nets might be worthwhile, too. It
gives an opportunity to send a lot of stuff (originate a mailgram
to everyone you know), and maybe receive a lot of stuff.
When I was a kid, I was NCS for the Southern California CW
Traffic Net (SCN). I was also representative to RN6. That was
great fun. It was also a great training ground for building up
my CW speed.
Let me ask the group this: I have never even seen Ten-Tec
paddles and keyer in real life. Are they good? How do the
paddles feel? My hesitation about getting it would be that there
are no memories in the keyer. Are there? I'd need memories
since I do like to contest, which I also believe is an excellent
way to improve CW speed and operating skills. Lord knows, if you
listened to some of the QSO's I have had on the way to/from work
lately, there are some really poor fists out there and the speeds
are very low (I call CQ at 30, get a call at 20. sigh.).
73,
dale, kg5u
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