[UK-CONTEST] Demise of CW as a comms medium?

[Peter Hobbs]

Having followed the related posts with interest, it's pretty clear that CW as a means of communication is (with some honourable exceptions) now largely perpetuated by those of us who grew up when it was an essential tool for the owner of a modest station.  And yes, we really want to encourage the younger generation to get involved.  But for what reason other than to perpetuate the expertise many of us learned when we were at school and which provides us with a nostalgic link to those days, rather than as a logical medium for efficient communications in the future?  The start of the decline was probably the introduction of SSB designs and equipment in the late 1950s, which allowed a modest station access to voice comms for the first time (try cracking a pile-up using AM with 100W and a dipole).

However, apart from the unique decoding ability of the human brain that separates morse operators from the rest of the human race, CW has declined even as an art form (remember Vibroplex?) as a result of the current urgent need to do everything by computer.

A declared aim of amateur radio is technological advancement in the field of radio communications. There are now datamodes available that can achieve communication at greater data rates, under lower noise levels and with greater signal densities than on-off morse ever could.  

I was lucky to live near a RNV(W)R centre in my earlier youth that actually PAID me at 15 to go along on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and participate in the Wednesday on-the-air exercise, with a loan CR100 (with CO/PA transmitter in the lid) thrown in.  They were happy and rewarding days but they are long gone.

As current datamodes are already so efficient that they must inevitably replace CW when the ranks of the current protagonists are depleted, shouldn't the HFCC, indeed the RSGB, develop a strategy to encourage an equivalent level of expertise and common standards in these modes, in addition to including them as an also-ran in the CC series?  I'm not talking about plain old inefficient RTTY of course which has hardly moved in the last 50 years and only exists through inertia.  After all anyone with a PC has all that's needed to generate and decode the most sophisticated modes and algorithms, but there is still something of a "black art" aura that seems to surround the subject.

As a life long CW operator I hope I'm wrong in the above analysis and the mode will continue into the future as a major component of amateur radio operation, but the evidence points otherwise.

73
Peter G3LET