[UK-CONTEST] AFS CW

[David G3YYD]

David

I had a look at the reverse beacon network after the contest and most 
stations were around the mid-20s a few were in the low thirties and very 
few were below 20 WPM. So if you managed to copy some calls you were 
doing well.

My keyer was mainly around  26 give or take a few. Once I went down to 
20 or 19 for some one who called me at that speed and 32 for some guys I 
knew could copy well above that.

As for the QRS corral, I never went that high in S&P as previous contest 
experience tells me no one is ever operating in that area. Also previous 
experience tells me that station density is highest in the middle and 
bottom of the contest segment. Maximum QSO rate is to be had in those 
areas and so when S&P or running I would generally be in those areas of 
the segment.

As assistance is allowed in AFS then might as well use the K3 readout to 
assist you in getting some QSOs. However with CW practice is the key. A 
PC/Lap top with software can be used. I use morse runner for 20 mins 
twice a day for a few days before a CW contest to get my ear/brain 
trained up.

73 David G3YYD

On 11/01/2011 16:29, David Ferrington, M0XDF wrote:
> Ok, I guess I'll join in - not being very competent with morse and still learning, I used the contest as a training exercise - I listened and tried to read the code, doing my best to ignore the K3 which is far better at reading morse than I am :-(.
> It took me quite a few mins to get most callsigns, but then everyone seemed to be working at more than 12 WPM, HiHi.
> Once I'd got the callsign, I'd check what the K3 was saying it was - I guess I got about 90% right.
>
> I only worked out about 16 calls, since I as doing other things too and most were far too fast for me to follow. Getting the 599 and serial was pretty easy, but then it's almost always the same.
> Different preambles, like 'test' or 'tst', 'cq test' and even 'cq cq test de' were interesting.
> I didn't feel competent to respond, because most were far to fast.
> I had a key ready, but I didn't hear one single call in the whole 4 hrs in the QRS corral, so didn't Tx.
> But for me it was worthwhile.