[UK-CONTEST] Reasons to favour CW Skimmer

[g3ory at lineone.net]

Chris et Al,


Here are some positive reasons in favour of the Skimmer. 

Ask yourself where CW contesting will be after 30 years of no-code 
licences.  
Might a new licencee who has not had to learn CW be  persuaded to 
have 
a go in an 80m CC CW contest to help with the Club score if he could 
use the skimmer to find stations he had not worked and to copy the 
exchange?  In the fullness of time he or she might start copying some 
of the CW because the skimmer is slow and does not always decode as 
well as a human can  listening to the morse. That might encourage the 
person to use another modern development like Morse Runner to 
establish 
some CW skills of their own.

Second reason. SO2R is a technique restricted to the elite few 
because 
few are able to copy calls on the second radio while using the first 
to 
call CQ and have QSOs.  The skimmer levels the playing field a bit.  
Not entirely but partly. The effect of that is to encourage those who 
are not up to using SO2R in its current form and make them feel less 
disadvantaged alongside those who can and do.  In that way they are 
not 
put off CW contesting by feeling that there is an elite out there who 
they cannot emulate. Who wants to be discouraging the next generation 
of CW contesters?

73  Bob



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