[CQ-Contest] re CW - dear naysayers - we have proof it works better :-)

[Jim White, K4OJ]

as a low power mobile in the Florida QSO Party I must say it is far more fun to run stations on CW than to get bits and pieces of and exchange on SSB....the operator is indeed more of a factor on CW!

BUT this is WRTC which tests all contest skills including maybe knowing when conditions are good enough to make SSB a viable option...

Ken says:

The actual WRTC results haven't historically supported this hypothesis.
Even in 2000, when the scoring was specifically designed to make CW and 
SSB QSOs equally important (by making one's CW or SSB score based upon 
a percentage of the highest QSO total made on that mode) the WRTC 
operators _still_ on average made more CW QSOs than phone QSOs.

Probably because it was easier - and hence more productive!

In a low power environment nobody can argue successfully with me that CW isn't a better node!

This is not because I am a code guy - it is because I know what works in marginal conditions - anybody can run and be king for a limited amount of any contest - when the worked is not our oyster (which is the bulk of the contest) is when we see the beauty of CW - even with marginal copy both ends you can make it happen, those in the know and any top ten finisher in a CW contest will tell you he won not by those phenomenal peak Euro hours but the fact that he had a lot of "average" hours where he was successful at running the "pw" stations.

When you get great CW ops you get some big numbers...at the low part of the cycle the score will close (SSB vs. CW) because those that are making QSOs magically happen under strained conditions are doing it on SSB!

We can talk faster with our mouths than our fingers on the whole...but we hear CW better and that sir is the most important factor in Dxing or Contesting - you can;t work em if ya can't copy em!