Now that I've launched the pro-contesting diatribe at you, let me try
another in favor of CW, an important aspect of CONTESTing...
CW is not obsolete
1. When a band is open, the CW part of our spectrum has lots of activity.
2. During major operating events our CW spectrum on an open band is jam
packed. Given the narrower CW signal as compared to SSB or other modes,
this means a lot more activity in a comparable slice of spectrm.
3. Is CW "low tech?" Maybe, in the positive sense that it's simple.
But maybe it's high tech: The only digital mode readily copyable from
the radio with the human ear and brain, no modem/TNC or computer needed.
It's efficient in its spectrum use and that's anothe high tech aspect.
There's been talk in recent years of narrow band FM and other narrow band
modes. If you're going for a narrow band signal, why not start with a
narrow band signal...CW? Maybe a CW signal 1/10th the width of a typical
current CW signal is possible in the future.
4. Contrary to the gloom and doom talk of the demise of CW in the Coast
Guard, MARS, or Merchant Marine, I'm told in certain services CW is still
very important. If you're laying in a pile of leaves in the dark trying
to avoid detection by "hostile forces" (let's say terrorists), would you
rather communicate by using a microphone, a keyboard, or a micro CW key
responsive to slight pressure of your fingertip? Which mode would best
"get through" from a tiny radio at the microwatt level? Now that we have
the TS-50 and equivalent smaller HF radios, maybe the HF HT or even
"wrist radio" is coming along. It seems to me CW will provide the most
effective communication from a simple, limited power, micro radio.
5. At another end of things, which is a new ham in a developing country
more able to afford (build and maintain), a simple CW rig, perhaps built
from old TV set parts like they used to be in the U.S., or a high tech
SSB rig? There are over two billion people in China and India alone.
6. As if the above was not enough, the teaching of CW can be justified
as an honorable part of the history of ham radio and a part of the ham
radio ethic. By way of analogy, if you tried to put together a course of
study on fishing, you could just teach the students to drop sticks of
dynamite into the water and scoop up the fish that float to the surface.
Or...you might teach fly fishing, spin fishing, netting, various "modes"
of fishing. A fisherman who was knowledgeable in all these could be
considered "the compleat angler."
Ham radio "as we know it" may currently be suffering from a drift away
from the ethic of earlier generations of hams. It may take a vigorous
teaching of this ethic, the magic and mystique of shortwave, including
CW, to preserve ham radio. I believe teaching our new hams how to behave
like gentlemen -- and CW can be an important part of that -- on the air
may be the most important, and most neglected, part of our ham radio
training.
The 160 meter band has been known over the years by the nickname "the
gentleman's band." In recent years I've heard some disgusting things on
160. It has seemed to me that 160 has gotten some of the overflow of the
worst elements from "75," which has become over the years the closest
thing on the ham bands to the worst aspects of CB. As a proposition, I
would say that at one time -all- the bands were gentleman's bands; 160
may just be the last casualty.
I think CW can (and should) be part of ham radio's "return to its roots."
73 - Rich Boyd, KE3Q
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