When
I wrote in a previous post that everyone was sending at such a high rate during
the CW-SS I didn’t
mean for it to be as a complaint! I
am not a new ham-licensed “around” 1986 (since I’ve long lost my original
license I don’t know actual year and there is no easy place to find actual
date!!). I worked hard to get my
Extra but then I moved to Canada and then to Mexico and could not have a ham
station easily at either place because of space/money limitations. So, I lost
all my proficiency with CW
and when I finally got my new radio this fall I found I could only copy about
5wpm, and that with a lot of errors!
Practice and enjoying contacts on the air have gotten my speed back up a
lot, but I am still weak on the numbers and punctuation.
Now,
with all that said, to me ham radio is kind of like an intellectual fraternity
(even though sometimes we are neither intellectual nor fraternal!) and CW is
the “secret handshake” of the fraternity—that doesn’t go to it being a
requirement or not, it is just sentimental. Personally, I like CW a lot and so
I want to excel in it,
but for fun as well as to make contacts with DX and in contests.
When
I was younger I played football, and the coaches always said, “take one for the
team” and “winning is the only option”. Well, I sacrificed my knees to the
sport before I realized
that it was no longer FUN for me and I got out of organized sports—I was
playing only for fun and they were playing only to win! I realized that I am
competitive, but
not the “win at all cost” type.
For me, what Art K3KU wrote, “One of the neat things about SS is working
all your old friends, many of whom you have never even met” goes for me too; I
want compete, but more with myself than anyone else, but I want to have fun!
Ok,
my original point got lost in the medium.
I didn’t really expect the big guns to be sending slowly but I was
surprised at the seeming lack of slower-sending stations. If I could do this
SS over again I
wouldn’t even bother spending so much time trying to copy the fast ones, I
would just go to an empty spot and start sending CQ just like they were, but at
a speed where I felt comfortable.
If someone came along that only wanted to send 35wpm they would either
have to slow down for me or move on--not in an ugly way but that is as fast as I
can pedal without a lot of embarrassing “AGN”s. I would have had a lot more
fun than just doing code
practice! (hi, hi!).
Just
because I currently am slower doesn’t say that there is anything wrong with
those who can send and receive reliably at faster speeds. If anything, it is
just another
incentive to get faster myself!
Not because I now am somehow not “good” enough, but because it will be a
lot more fun.
Finally,
to all that said they would have slowed down if I had called them, well, I
looked on my list of stations copied and didn’t find a single one. Hope I have
better luck next time and
hear all of you (or that you hear me!) because I would like to work you, ALL of
you! (hi, hi).
Good luck to all in the next contest--I'll look for all of you there.
73,
Scott AA0AA
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