[UK-CONTEST] Keyboard delays - CC CW 15/6 (longish)

[Dave Sergeant]

On 19 Jun 2005 at 17:51, Peter Hobbs wrote:

> The best response time from this small sample was by G0WKW at
> 298/286ms, followed by G3SXW at 452/371.  Very few of those who I know
> were on the keyboard bettered a call response time of 600ms, whereas
> using a paddle this is easy.  The average was around a whole second,
> with several over the 1.5 second mark.  Now it should be possible to
> improve some on this using partial entry and catch-up, which is
> supported by all the loggers nowadays.  I doubt that the
> keyboard/keyer itself is contributing much to the delay, which even in
> such a short event loses several minutes to the average participant.

You should also factor in those using QSK in their rigs. Although 
myself, who operated search and pounce entirely through this event, 
and didn't in fact even work Peter, probably won't be a key player in 
these totals, I find QSK reduces the time to respond to a station 
considerably compared with those using semi automatic changeover with 
its own delay. In fact I tend to find myself calling even before the 
other station has stopped sending... And one other feature of QSK 
commented on by others listening to my operating is that I frequently 
stop sending mid letter when the station goes back to somebody else, 
something you probably don't get with keyboard sending!

Most of the time in search and pounce of course, by the time I call I 
have already typed the callsign into the logger (SD) so have a very 
short response delay. When I do call CQ there is sometimes a delay 
while I catch up typing in the call - I don't think using keyboard 
sending would reduce that. 100% paddle here of course..

73 Dave G3YMC

http://www.davesergeant.com