On Tue, 06 Nov 2007 17:08:24 -0800, Ron D'Eau Claire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
This is a great feature for anyone who wants to hone their CW skills from
the most basic level on the air. As a Novice myself back in '52 who
could
barely get through a short signal exchange before my arm 'fell off' or my
last pencil point broke in my nervous hand I believe that actual on-air
experience is the fastest way to build CW confidence and skill.
Hi Ron,
Last weekend I had an hour or so to operate in the Sweepstakes. After
having been licensed about a year, and on the air for nine months, the
2006 Sweepstakes was my first ever contest: talk about jumping into the
deep end of the pool! (I ended up getting massacred with five QSOs for
zero points; I had mis-copied something in every QSO.)
Anyway, this Sweepstakes I was starting to get the hang of it. My
comfortable ragchew copying speed is about 15-18 wpm, and my contest speed
is as high as 30 wpm for a simple exchange, or about 22-25 wpm under
Sweepstakes conditions.
Someone had given me a Morse decoder based on IK3OIL's design, which has a
NE567 decoding the tones and a PIC translating the Morse. Usually it
doesn't work very well, because a crash of static will be interpreted as a
dit. But when I was working some of the loud stations last weekend with
the RF gain of my K2 turned way down, I noticed that my decoder box was
working perfectly!
Well my new-found toy became a crutch very quickly. I soon found myself
not even listening, and instead watching the text scroll by. I switched
it off after ten minutes, and was much happier.
My opinion is that a Morse decoder does more harm than good for a
learner. Maybe it might be helpful for those first few terrifying QSOs
(which are still quite vivid in my memory), but I think that the learner
would be far better off learning to trust his or her own decoding
apparatus.
73,
- Rob W7GH
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