[UK-CONTEST] CW sending speed on 160m

[Roger Cooke]

Hi Chris.

  For me, 160m is somewhat different than the higher HF bands in that I not only have static crashes during the
summer, but a constant power line noise around the S-7 to 9 dry weather or S-9 plus 15-20dB in wet weather.
Sending at 35 wpm under those conditions increases the bit error rate and makes copy very difficult. Slower
sending sinks into the brain a lot better.  Perhaps it is also an "age" thing, but I find it easier to copy around
20-25 through that noise rather than 35 plus wpm. 
   My other pet hate are those stations with key clicks that spread over 10kHz. Just been listening to VK9XX
and he was being called by ON7GB who was around 3kHz lower but his clicks were actually covering up 
VK9XX.   I found the same in the contest too. There are still those with unmodded FT1000MP's, unforgivable!!!!

 
Regards from Roger, G3LDI
Swardeston, Norfolk.




----- Original Message ----
From: Chris Tran GM3WOJ <zl1ct1 at gm7v.com>
To: uk-contest at contesting.com
Sent: Tue, 24 November, 2009 16:39:22
Subject: [UK-CONTEST] CW sending speed on 160m

Hello UK-contesters

I was going to post this to the cq-contest reflector but have had some bad 
responses there in the past e.g. when I tried to complain about Pete N4ZR's 
constant 'adverts' for Skimmer, so thought I would post here first.

In the good old days, it was accepted practice to send CW more slowly on 
160m - I assume the reasoning being that static crashes, etc could easily 
blank out dots or dashes and lead to inaccurate copying. It seems to me that 
this may be flawed logic - in other words a call sent at 32-24 wpm might fit 
the whole callsign between static crashes and actually lead to more reliable 
copy than a callsign sent more slowly. I first experienced this at ZL6QH 
when Wil ZL2BSJ (now PE7T) was sending on 160m at about 35wpm and everyone 
seemed to be copying everything easily. I'm not an expert on 160m so would 
be interested to hear other opinions. Obviously you would think about 
slowing down if the other station sends more slowly than you but I've found 
that a constant sending speed usually works OK.

Another problem in CQ WW CW, for example, is stations on 160m and 80m 
leaving far too little time between CQs - again I've experienced this from 
ZL6QH - you call them (even at 35wpm) and by the time you go back to receive 
they are CQing again - almost as if they are not listening for anything less 
than S9 signals. I know the QRM may be S9 at their end, but they should at 
least try listening for weaker stations.

73
Chris    GM3WOJ / ZL1CT


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