[UK-CONTEST] Keyer or Keyboard? (Longish)

[Clive Whelan]

OFs like you and I Chris, will never be as proficient on the kbd, as our
younger brethren who were brought up on them, some even professionally
trained ( remember when keyboarding was said to be a job mere girls, how
times have changed!)

Thus the more natural approach would always be to reach for the paddle,
especially when time is tight. Moreover, I would never dream of sending live
from the keyboard, as fluency, and accuracy would suffer horrendously. That
said I am a tad surprised that you do not use the kbd for the more routine
aspects of the QSO/exchange. I can see that when say DL/HB9ZZ/P calls at 35
wpm of course that panic can set it, and reversion to the paddle is more
comfortable. In fact in some ways shorter calls are even more difficult e.g.
K5ZD who never sends at LESS than 35wpm! But, and it is a big one, why are
you using F keys at all? ( well OK hardly at all)

 I know you are using Writelog, and there is little need to use the F keys
at all. In run mode, all you need is the intelligent enter key, it will call
CQ, send the exchange, and the "QSL" message all in sequence, without even
thinking about it. OK, so you can't get the full call into the kbd when that
guy mentioned above calls so fast, but you don't need to. Just enter
DL<ENTER>and then the rest of the call, and the computer just catches up in
real time; that's what I do all the time-well 95% of the time anyway.

Now S&P mode. Unfortunately WL still doesn't have a mode switch like TR (
one day right!),  but there's a work around which you could quickly get used
to. Using your own two keys of choice ( I use numeric pad + & numeric pad
enter) reprogrammed those keys to dump your call and send the exchange
respectively. It's still not as fluent as TR, but Wayne and co. are just not
CW ops and frankly do not understand. Usually they only time I'll use an F
key, is in run mode when I am a tad slow getting the received report into
the kbd, and want to send the "QSL" message before I've finished. In that
case I'll just use F3, and carry on entering the exchange, then use Ctrl
<ENTER> to silently log the QSO.

Do I get this right every time? You bet I don't, and in that case, the
paddle is the emergency route of course. I use the W5XD keyer, and that
syncs the paddle speed to the kbd. However, since I am now digitally
challenged in my dotage, viz I have stiff and numb fingers, and can no
longer send adequately at 40wpm, some compromise is necessary. But hey, the
input side, viz the brain, still works as well as ever, and you can still
hit me with 35wpm contest QSOs for 40 hours plus without undue strain. Sure
I have to take breaks for inputs and outputs, but no more than I did when I
was 16, back in '59. One caveat to the above procedure however. Don't sit
poised with your second finger over the <ENTER> key at 0300, since when you
fall asleep ( as you will inevitably do when rates are low), your finger
will fall onto the <ENTER> key and call CQ continuously!

Bon courage butty!


73


Clive
GW3NJW