Topband: Lack of NA Activity on CW

[JAYB1943 at OPTONLINE.NET]

Lets face it guys – hams like me (age 76, licensed at age 14) learned and 
used CW as an (almost) mandatory part of the hobby. Along came the NO-CW 
licenses and there was a whole lot fewer new people on CW....Us old timers 
are dying off and the CW mandate goes with us. Regardless of the rise of the 
digital modes (oh, do remember, RTTY is a digital mode), the total number of 
CW ops was destined to fall ! The new-comers (no cw requirement of course), 
raised on bits and bites, naturally gravitated to the new Digital modes, 
particularly during these sunspot doldrums. If it was 1980, they would all 
be on 10m ssb working the world 24/7 !
Be patient, in 4-5 years condx will improve dramatically (we hope !) and 
there will be a big shift back to SSB....but...don’t expect a similar 
resurgence of CW...sadly, it’s a dying art...so us OT’s should enjoy it 
while we can and learn to live with the new realities of HR.
   73 jay NY2NY