(to be clear: I have great respect and admiration for the hard-core CW contest ops and their high speed skills)
NV1B .. On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 6:27 PM Andrew Moore <andrew.n...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Jim - > > Among the best ways to get better at something is to practice, and often a > better way is to practice while jumping into a live scenario (as opposed to > simulated or offline) before you're reasonably proficient. I wouldn't > recommend that approach for learning how to fly an airplane or drive a car, > but for learning a spoken language or improving CW sending, sure. > Non-contesting operation doesn't cease when big contests are running. > > > Both of these problems are easily solved by using a contest logging > program, both to log and to send CW > > There's not a lot you can do to change their behavior, so why not focus on > what you can control: Both could easily be solved by, when hearing a faint, > sloppy QRP station answering your call, simply ignoring them. A bad fist > should be easy to identify in a few seconds. Answer someone else, or call > CQ again. Their feelings might be hurt briefly, but they'll understand and > you won't waste time. > > For many of us, maybe not the hard core contesters, the joy of contesting > is keying by hand and taking notes on paper, and don't have a lot of > interest in tying a computer to the radio and sending by keyboard > (excepting QRQ operation where using a keyboard is the only choice). > > All that said, I understand your frustration. > > 73/72, > -Andrew NV1B > .. > > > On Tue, Nov 8, 2022 at 4:52 PM Jim Brown <j...@audiosystemsgroup.com> > wrote: > >> I made more than 1,000 QSOs in Sweepstakes this weekend, and the most >> frustrating, by far, were from a couple of dozen QRPers who 1) never >> heard of dupe checking; and 2) sent by hand with pretty lousy fists. >> Late Sunday evening, while calling CQ on another band, I waited a couple >> of minutes for a VA2 station to get a fill on the serial number from a >> QRPer who couldn't send it correctly, probably because he hadn't worked >> enough CW to have a decent fist. The problem was NOT signal strength. I >> had the same problem with half of the casual QRPers I worked. >> >> Both of these problems are easily solved by using a contest logging >> program, both to log and to send CW. This is not a slam on QRP operation >> -- I've worked a lot of contests QRP, and one of my best buddies, W6JTI, >> WINS or places in the top two or three in the many contests he enters >> QRP. Frank made 554 QSOs in SS last weekend, and made the sweep of all >> 84 sections (NOT easy with HIGH power). >> >> Why does this matter? Because MANY contesters take it seriously, and >> most can finish a Sweepstakes QSO in 30-40 seconds. Most of us, me >> included, are happy to work and encourage new contesters, but it's very >> frustrating when someone can't send CW due to lack of practice, and >> calls to work us a second or even a third time because he's too lazy to >> check of dupes, taking well over a minute to finish a QSO. >> >> 73, Jim K9YC >> >> >> >> ______________________________________________________________ >> Elecraft mailing list >> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft >> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm >> Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net >> >> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net >> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html >> Message delivered to andrew.n...@gmail.com >> > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
