[UK-CONTEST] Fw: Demise of CW as a comms medium? (long)

[Ray - G4FON]

>> Ian GM3SEK wrote 
>> As a first step, I'd suggest stepping up the basic character speed of
Farnsworth/Koch trainers to 20s. Perhaps Ray FON or others can comment?

Since Ian threw down the gauntlet, I will chime in with my tuppence worth!

>From my perspective there are a number of interesting things to note about
Morse and its reported demise!

My Koch Method CW trainer, which Dave, G4BUO, amongst others mentioned on
this reflector is extremely popular, I have just checked my web site
statistics and I have had around 4300 unique hits this month so far.
Obviously there is more on the site than just the CW Trainer, but I have
seen 1867 downloads of the trainer software this month. Last month there
were 2684 downloads of the software! In fairness, I have recently released a
new version, so some of those downloads will be people getting the latest
version, but since that was over a month ago, I don't think it skews the
figures that much as my monthly bandwidth usage is always pretty constant.

The vast majority of the downloads come from the US or from people running
their Windows Locale in the default mode which makes it appear to be a US
connection, but there are plenty from the EU and around the world. I request
a QSL card for downloading the software and I am sure it has DXCC already!

I also run an email reflector designed to allow people to exchange comments
and thoughts about the software and also to post questions to other users
about their progress. Currently the reflector has just over 800 members.
With the announcement of the end of the US Morse test, I fully expected to
get a mass resignation from the reflector, but I doubt that more that 20
people have unsubscribed. Interestingly, there was also an upsurge in UK
downloads after the Morse requirement was abolished here...

Several things come out of reading the posts on the reflector and also from
email that I get from individual users. The first and probably the most
obvious is that everybody learns differently and what is a good technique
for some does not work for others. The second is that learning for the 5WPM
test and the concept of the 5WPM test is probably the thing that has done
more than anything else to kill CW. It is just too slow to be useful and
builds some terrible habits. 

Another thing that comes out is just how difficult it is to get over the
10-12WPM plateau and just how much the brain holds onto any band aid it can
find to keep the lookup table active. I also get reports of people learning
50 years ago were taught "Sound-alikes" to get through the test, they have
then dropped out of the hobby, as you do, and upon returning discover that
these still persist today, 50 years later, and that they are the biggest
impediment to a good Morse speed. If you are involved with mentoring
somebody in Morse, do them a favour and never mention sound-alikes!

I will digress, but for those of you how do not know about Koch, he realised
that the 10-12 WPM plateau was caused by your brain building a dot-dash
lookup table at low speed which it needs to forget and instead recognise the
sound of the Morse character at speeds above about 12 WPM. Koch reasoned
that it was better to start off above the plateau with just two Morse
characters and add one as you become proficient with the current set. That
way you are learning just one new character and reinforcing the rest.

Part of the Koch regime is to grade yourself on a 5 minute lesson at your
chosen speed, you need a 90% success to add another character. It is
interesting to make this grading easier a high percentage of people want to
be able to type in the Morse as they received it. I contend that although
Contesting Morse is about typing, rag chewing is not and you should not
learn to copy to a keyboard when you start out. I noticed in myself that if
I am just on the bands looking for QSO's outside of contests that I have
trouble remembering the callsign of stations calling me. I realised recently
that I have actually taught myself to type any callsign I hear without
really taking any notice of it and this is detrimentally to casually working
the bands.

Learning to ragchew, which was a topic earlier in this thread, is much more
difficult these days it seems to me. It is easy to find the "rubber stamp"
QSO's anywhere on the band, but you need to be able to copy at at least 20
and possibly 25 WPM to listen to a rag chew. The obvious question is how to
get their? My advice to people using my software is to record long sessions
of the "common words" file I supply as part of the software, put the results
onto an MP3 player and just listen to the words when you can, copying them
only in your head. The file contains around 1000 words, but there are
filters in the software to restrict the range when you are first learning.
Just keep the Morse playing and dip in and out of actually copying it. You
will find copying skills dramatically increase. Once you are happily copying
the common words, go to Project Gutenberg and find a book to download, they
have a wide selection. Again record the book in Morse using the software and
listen to it on an MP3 player.

Part way through writing this email, RadCom landed on the doormat and page
77 has yet another unsolicited plug for the software! It is good to see that
despite the reported demise of Morse there are still plenty of people
prepared to push it at any opportunity.

For those interested in the software, go to www.g4fon.net

73

Ray, G4FON