[UK-CONTEST] Fw: old gits vs young gits

[Gerry Lynch]

Clive Whelan wrote:
> I'd burn every 
> instruction book, Farnsworth tape, and new fangled CD. In their place 
> I'd give the pupil an HF receiver, and once they knew the actual letters 
> and numerals, tell them to get down the LF end of 7 or 14Mhz, and just 
> listen to CW until they could copy a name or part of a callsign, and 
> that way they'll learn without ever really trying. That's what I did 50 
> years ago without help from any third party, and I went from 0 w.p.m. to 
> a 12 w.p.m. pass in about 4 or 5 months. I was just a spotty young git 
> so if I could do it, anyone can!
>   
Absolutely and totally agree.  Except I did it 20 years ago, not 50.  
There really is no substitute for listening to CW on the air.  As 
someone who learned to drive a long time after they learned CW, it would 
have been considered idiotic to learn to drive on a computer simulator; 
or to learn to play football on the Playstation.

I hope I'm still young enough to be a young git, and am in any 
eventuality a git.  Except in Belfast it's pronounced 'gat', and 
'hallion' might be preferable as a more colourful local variant.

73

Gerry GI0RTN (the just about still young hallion)