Bill, VE2WMA asked: I made my first CW contacts in 48 years. What a thrill. I was motivated. It was now time to prepare for FD. I got my code speed up to 100% at 10 wpm with W1AW sessions but, alas, after what seemed like hundreds of QSO's with the K2 in the tESt mode, I just could not develop any consistent skill using my Bencher BY-2 Iambic paddles. No problem though. Instead, I dusted off my very old and well pitted, (by keying the voracious cathodes of the 807's at 500 volts) Lionel J-38 key and polished up my rusty fist instead.
Field day arrived and I was on the air as a 1E station with my K2 set to a very testy 5 watts. Very quickly and much to my dismay, it was apparent that I was so very outclassed. Iambic keys dominated and the average CW speed of the contest was at least twice that of my recently regained skill of 10 wpm. Except for the K2, I felt like I was in an F1 race with a 1980 Chevy Cavalier. I made a few contacts with some very patient operators but I was so not prepared. I realized how true it is that a radio is only as good as the operator in front of it. So, before I condescend to selling my Bencher BY-2, retiring the J-38 for life and start building the K2 SSB board, the 100 watt amp and permanently retiring up-band, can someone give me some advice on possibly mastering the Iambic key. Questions include: 1. Iambic A or Iambic B? 2. Proper contact spacing on the paddles? 3. Paddles n or Paddles r? I am right handed. 4. How to best learn the art of Iambic keying. For instance start at 20 wpm and work down or 10 wpm and work up? 5. Slap or caress the paddles? 6. Is it just a matter of practice, practice and more practice? Kind of like soldering 7. A reality check, maybe I am just too far gone to learn this skill. But, at one time, I did have a pretty good fist on the J-38. ..............And any other tid-bits of advice --------------------------- Congrats Bill, from another "807 generation" Ham (still have a couple of 807's around, and I'm not talking about the kind that are kept in the 'fridge either). I pounded brass with straight key and bug for 20 years, followed by 25 years on a keyer, and now almost 10 years back on the bug just for the fun of it. Nothing collapses one's fist like "pressure". You said you got up to 10 wpm copying W1AW, but what about sending? I have always set aside a little time to practice and check my sending from time to time - usually when I have the itch to operate but time is very limited. So I do a little sending practice. Keyer or Bug, my goal is to send a full page from the phone book, names, addresses and phone numbers, smoothly and without a mistake. That's how I learned my keyer and that's what I do regularly to check myself on the bug now. For smoothness, I used to record my sending then listen to it a few days later to see if I liked my "fist". A quicker feedback these days is to use a CW "reader" program on the computer, but those programs are notoriously sensitive: they often make garbage from a good keyer fist not to mention a manual key. So if I can get >90% copy on the computer I relax a tad. I use "CW Get" which is available as Shareware. I think a contest, especially a contest in which you feel at all pressured by the speed of other fists, is the most undesirable sort of environment in which to build your speed. At best you'll learn to recognize calls and limited data but, as you know, that's a far cry from really copying CW. And, as you observed, trying to send a reply quickly and efficiently is horribly difficult. An Iambic key is much like a manual key: there's a rhythm that you want to maintain. The time-honored process of sending at your clean speed and watching it move upward is still best, IMHO. As the FISTS guys say: accuracy transcends speed. You don't need to apply much pressure, if any at all. Just move along at your best sending speed and the speed increases naturally. I still remember my (very pleasant) surprise when I first got on the air at 5 WPM. I could barely send or copy at that speed. A few months later I discovered that I was clipping along at 15 wpm on a straight key, and doing so to the satisfaction of the FCC examiner when I passed my sending and receiving test for my General class license. Nothing encourages learning like having fun, including learning Morse. For goodness' sake take that K2 *out* of TEST mode frequently when there's no contest going on. Anyone who complains about your fist isn't worth a QSO anyway. Have fun on purpose! This is a hobby, not rocket science! Speed will follow the fun quite naturally. Another issue has to do with practice sending vs. actual sending. I've known a number of Hams who discovered they couldn't think about what to send while actually sending. They can send prepared text - for a contest exchange or practice copy off of a printed page - but they can't think of what to say in a normal QSO *and* send at the same time. I guess it does take practice. I wonder if that wasn't part of your experience on FD? Some rag chews will cure that. I know one op who made up a whole bunch of prepared statements, such as how long he'd been a ham, what he did, things about his rig, QTH, etc., that he could grab and read from while sending when he was stuck. He had them on 3x5 inch cards. After a while he discovered that not only he didn't need the cards, he was inventing things to say that he had never thought about before! Now he was really using Morse as a new "language". Personally, I've never ever been able to tell much difference between various makes of paddles at speeds under 30 wpm. Since I almost never exceed 30 wpm, my old "Ham key" cheap paddles that I built into my homebrew keyer were perfect until I snagged a set of the original "Scotia" magnetic paddles at a ham auction one time. I've tried benchers as well as many others. They all seem FB to me. Some have more "give" to the paddles than others, but that's all. And I do prefer "stiff" paddles in any key but again that's absolutely. Y'know, I never heard much about paddles (or keys in general) before all the very expensive paddles started hitting the market, and I'm pretty well convinced that a lot of the choice has to do with purely subjective impressions that no one will ever quantify. For some it sounds like: "more money = better key". If they're having fun, that's FB! My touch on the paddles is what they need, which means that it's a "caress" compared to a bug. The gap depends upon my general speed range. I like a fair bit of movement in the paddles, so it's wide compared to others. That's a purely personal preference and you can send very well at any gap spacing you want if you aren't looking to QRQ > 30 or 40 WPM! Again, I think if you try out various things while practicing, you'll find what works for you. And it may change over time as your speed increases. Pdln is what you'll find on other keyers so I recommend n for "normal". I'm lucky to be rather ambidextrous and use a straight key with my left hand, but, when I learned a bug, I got a right hand bug and learned to use it right handed. I use paddles right handed too. The "normal" paddle action mimics a right handed bug: dashes to the right done with the finger and dits to the right done with the thumb. Iambic A or B is again preference. The two modes are a direct result of an error in an early ASIC designed for keyers. Different Hams have learned each one so both modes have persisted. I've never heard anyone claim one was intrinsically better than the other, only that many Hams find it quite unsettling to try to use the "wrong" mode. Me included! To summarize my recommendations: 1) Get on the air and have fun. You don't owe anyone an apology. 2) Get on the air and have fun. You don't owe anyone an apology. 3) Get on the air and have fun. You don't owe anyone an apology. I have more recommendations, but I think you got the idea, Hi! Ron AC7AC _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
