Doug . . .
This is a super-great story!
You need to send it to QST for its "letters to the editor" page.
73,
Kent K9ZTV
On 6/12/2017 12:03 PM, Doug Smith wrote:
I agree about getting on the air. And, about the value of the old Novice class
in providing a “safe harbor”.
When I got my novice ticket I went out and bought crystals for various
frequencies on 80, 40 and 15 meters. Frequencies were random and I had three
on 80 meters — 3713, 3723 and 3741.
It turned out that there was a small bunch of us who, unbeknownst to each
other, had crystals on 3723. We mostly were brand new licensees and soon
became fast friends. There was a guy in Sacramento, a gal near Portland,
another gal near Spokane and myself in Montana. We hung out together on 3723
each night, sometimes for hours. Over the weeks and months, we all built up
T/R switches and went QSK. We all graduated to bugs and then electronic
keyers, mostly homebrew and TO keyers.
We had been holding forth on 3723 for 8 or 9 months and one night a guy with a
general call-sign and who we didn’t know broke in on us and told us we were
being rude by operating in the Novice band and that we should clear out of
there if we wanted to run at 40 WPM. I QRS’d for the guy and replied that we
would love to move but we were rock-bound Novices and couldn’t move and signed
my WN7DMA call sign.
It was a real eye opener because we had never really thought about speed. We
knew we were going faster that we used to, needed keyers and whatnot but
hadn’t really thought much about it. We were just a bunch of Novices, having
fun on the radio.
So, the point of this rambling?
Try to find some friends on the air who like to chew the rag and get on the air
with them as often as possible. A group of similar speed operators who won’t
need to ask someone to QRS or feel like they’re imposing on someone to operate
slowly. The value of that is huge. Friendship, brotherhood, and shared goals
make it easy to overcome the angst and build speed and competence. And, it’s
fun!
It is unfortunate the old Novice bands are gone but I do hear lots of guys
higher in the CW segments, lumbering along at 10 WPM. Sometimes I get on and
work one of them because I like to see them doing what they’re doing. It takes
some courage to jump on 20 meters and call CQ at 10 WPM..
One more thing. Once you can copy 15 WPM (or so) loose the pencil or keyboard.
Start copying in your head. CW then becomes a conversation and your speed
will start to inch upward. One day you’ll be clipping along at 30 WPM and not
even thinking about it. You’ll just be chatting with a friend..
73 and see you on the air!
Doug, W7KF
http://www.w7kf.com <http://www.w7kf.com/>
On Mon, Jun 12, 2017 at 10:43 AM, KENT TRIMBLE <k9...@socket.net
<mailto:k9...@socket.net>> wrote:
I thoroughly agree with Kev about "getting on the air."
I teach two and sometimes three Morse Code classes every Saturday
morning. The students all KNOW the code. They can accurately copy 10 WPM
and above, and can send quite decently. But no matter how much I
encourage, cajole, or "coddle," they resist my pleas to get "on the air"
for all kinds of reasons, but primarily two -- either no one comes back to
them or all they can find are speed demons who won't slow down.
The worse thing the FCC ever did for amateur radio (in my opinion) was the
elimination of the non-renewable Novice license with the concomitant doing
away of the Novice sub-bands. Those were safe-harbors for neophytes to
find each other, work each other, and improve each other without feeling
intimidated. The non-renewable aspect served to motivate those who were
desirous of deeper involvement in communications, and to give a graceful
exit to those who weren't.
All the computer programs and well-structured academies in-the-world are
simply no substitute for good old-fashioned one-on-one Morse Code work
between two eager and nervous operators. That's how you learn best and how
you learn quickest. And an even greater dividend is that you learn about
propagation, procedures, tuning skills, how receivers work, signal paths,
solar effects, antenna fundamentals, and a host of other things that can't
be learned on a laptop, no matter how well the application is executed or
the content designed.
73,
Kent K9ZTV
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