Good question, and one that has been discussed over the years on this
and other forums. Everyone who responds will have a different slant on
it - here's mine.
The meaning of QSK is that one can hear the other station while you're
sending. Why would you want to do that? Back when CW traffic nets were
common, it was useful to be able to break a sending station if you were
not copying his transmission properly. Or, for those who regularly
conversed at length on CW, it made for a more conversation-like
situation where you could interrupt a sending station for any reason,
maybe to make an immediate comment on something he sent. For modern day
DXers, it's useful to be able to detect that the station you're calling
has responded to someone else - no sense in continuing to send,
especially if he's running stations on his own frequency.
I doubt that anyone is ever going to respond to your CQ before you end
your transmission, unless you're calling endlessly and not giving
someone a chance to respond. So, QSK would be of little or no value in
that situation.
The fact is, you can operate CW just fine without ever using
full-break-in or QSK mode and there are some situations where that's
better. For example, I find it less tiresome in a long CW contest to
not hear all that's going on on my frequency while I'm sending. Others
will strongly disagree with that and would never operate anything but
QSK mode. I operated non-QSK mode for decades, primarily because the
rigs I had weren't capable of it, or they made excessive noise with
relay(s) chattering on every code element. On most other rigs other
than Tentec, running non-QSK mode, you hear a relay click when you start
sending, and then no more clicks until you stop sending.
The Tentec rigs have typically been better at QSK mode than the
competition and so were (and are) favored by many CW operators. If a
rig does QSK right, every dot and dash and space is the proper length,
and the receiver can be heard between dots and dashes or at least
between characters. My Orion II is flawless in that respect and keying
waveforms observed on a scope are textbook perfect. Other
"top-of-the-line" transceivers (I'm specifically thinking of the
FTDX-5000 here) are dreadful in QSK mode, usually truncating a leading
dot or dash and in some cases truncating EVERY dot. On the Orion, you
won't even find a switch to change from QSK to semi-break-in, although
you can insert a variable delay to accomplish a semi-break-in operation.
Whether or not QSK would be of value to you is a personal decision. I
operated quite successfully for 45 years without it, but with the Orion
II, I find myself using it most of the time because it works the way it
should. I suggest starting out in non-QSK and using QSK only when you
can state a reason for using it.
73, Floyd - K8AC
On 11/17/2011 11:06 AM, Richards wrote:
> At the risk of being labeled a "lid" - is there a handy explanation of
> how this QSK thing works, in practice, and how one uses it in daily life?
>
> I am going through a Code Course and looking to add CW to the mix... and
> I have this mental image of concentrating on sending code, and becoming
> annoyed with someone trying to bust in and interrupt my flow, by keying
> over me. I guess if I am calling CQ, it would help me know someone was
> returning the call, but why does he not wait until I listen for him?
>
> Now... I am sure that is a mistaken or ignorant outlook, but I do not
> know WHY not ! (I have some ideas about all this, but I would rather
> trade on fact than mere supposition... you KNOW what happens when you
> assume something... eh?)
>
> I don't mind reading up if there is a good explanation, but the ARRL
> Operating Handbook left me cold, and so did my license training guides.
>
> Anybody know a source of good info on good CW operating practice, in
> general, and the best use of QSK, in particular ?
>
> =================== Anonymous - K8JHR =============================
>
>
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