[UK-CONTEST] CQ WW CW operating techniques

[Andy Summers]

Hi Ron,

No, you're not alone! I particularly struggle with S & H at high speed, and
like you I can sit and listen for ages and still not be certain. I suppose
this would be an argument for learning characters sent at high speed, but
with long inter-character spacing, at the outset. I didn't.

What I can say is that there is evidently a point at which you stop doing a
translation and instead just instinctively know what the character is. I'm
now at that point, but it doesn't necessarily mean I'm fast - I'm not. The
problem I have is that there still seems to be a data access time in my head
and the shorter duration characters then become a problem at high speed. I
spend time waiting for my head to get the data out - meantime another
character has come along and there's a domino effect.

I've also found that you start to hear words. I expect you yourself
recognise TEST.

I presume the only medicine is practice. I started improving with the old CW
Cumulatives which are now 80mCC. I'm looking forward to their starting
again. Perhaps see you on?

I'm sure some people take to it like a duck to water. For the likes of us
it's much harder going!

I had a go in CQWW, sending at 20wpm because of the recent thread here that
said I wouldn't be thanked for sending at 15wpm. Overall, pretty good fun!

Andy, G4KNO.

PS: I wasn't any good at French either!


On Wed, Dec 2, 2009 at 2:57 PM, Ron Price <ron.price2 at virgin.net> wrote:

> My main interest is VHF contesting but I like to have a go at CQWWCW just
> to
> improve my limited (i.e. pathetic) cw skills.
> I am full of admiration for those ops who can effortlessly read high speed
> morse, I struggle with anything above 15wpm!
> I have tried many times over the years  to improve my copying speed but to
> no avail.
> I think I am suffering from what I can only describe as morse dyslexia and
> wonder if anyone else has the same problem.
> I'm fairly OK with the rythymic characters like C,F,L etc but struggle with
> S,H and 5 when sent at speed.
> So Slovenian stations are paticularly difficult to cope with at speed and
> any other call starting with S or H.
> I can listen to the call four or five times and still not be 100% certain
> that I have copied it correctly and frequently have to give up.
> I have a slight hearing problem which obviously doesn't help in
> distinguishing clearly between the number of dits but I don't think that
> this is the main problem.
> It seems more to do with a sluggish response by my brain and slow
> processing
> of the received information.
> In a similar vein I can remember struggling to learn French at school.
> Easy enough to memorise the vocabulary and string a sentence together or
> translate text but I found it extremely difficult to translate the spoken
> word quickly enough to have a conversation.
> I think my brain would translate word by word instead of listening to a
> whole phrase and is now probably doing the same thing in reading morse.
>
> So does anyone else have a similar problem, and have you found a cure for
> it?
> Also are the high speed ops good at learning languages.
>
> Best wishes to all,
>
> Ron, GW4EVX
>
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