[UK-CONTEST] ARRL CW

[Dennis Andrews, F5VHY]

I have to disagree with Gerry on this one. I rarely send at more than 30wpm in contests and never use speeded up CW. I have the PageUp and PageDown keys progammed to change the sending speed - and use this a lot. This way, there is a minimum amount of failure to copy. With higher speeds, there is far more ? ? where others can't copy your call or the exchange. It also will put many people off calling all together - unless they are responding to a packet spot - in which case, they are all zero-beat on the same frequency (having hit F6 or whatever to transfer the spot freq to the transceiver) apart from the smart ones who realise that they need to offset by a fraction.

I don't consider this, in any way, detracts from QSO rates. In the ARRL last weekend, my 10-minute rate meter was frequently up to 300 and I had plenty of instances of 5 QSOs in the same minute. 

I think you will find that Clive - GM3POI subscribes to the same ideas.

73 de Dennis - F5VHY/TM6X

PS - my trusty FT1000MP didn't seem to notice too much problem from "wide" signals - heaven forbid that the K3 has a problem!