CW in Emergencies?

[Ralph Tyrrell]

reflection on Ron’s comments.

I was OX5BT for 2 1/2 years. Mostly used CW due to the
frequent arctic flutter making SSB unintelligible.
I remember a CW qso that I was having on 20M, we were
going along about 20 WPM when the flutter started.
I slowed down, he slowed down, we finished the QSO at
less than 10 WPM. The easily variable data rate of CW
allowed us to adjust for conditions and complete a
very pleasant QSO.

I made WAS from Thule, I wanted it to be all CW but
the CW ops in KH6 that I did work did not send me a
QSL card.
Thanks to the SSB QSO with a KH6 I got my 50th QSL
card and obtained a mixed mode WAS
.
Thanks to Kevin, KD5ONS and the ECN for CW activity.
I also get into the QPR sprints,
http://www.arsqrp.com/ and
http://www.arm-tek.net/~yoel/sprint200509.html and
others.
There is CW out there but sometimes the activity does
seem sparse.

73, TY. W1TF
K1 1432 (at present my only rig on the air)


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[Stephen W. Kercel]

>Ralph says:

>There is CW out there but sometimes the activity does
>seem sparse.
************************

I'd wondered about that. I was completely inactive from July 1983 to
November 2004, and I've noticed that the CW bands seem a lot less populated
now than they did 20+ years ago. For example, last night as I tuned across
the CW end of 40 m I heard maybe 6 QSOs. Admittedly, the geomagnetic
activity has been high and propagation over the past week has been actively
stinking.

On the other hand, I wonder if the sparsity of transmissions is really from
fewer hams operating, or simply from fewer hams transmitting. I expect that
quite a few operators do what I do, listen without transmitting until
something genuinely interesting pops up. My reason for suspecting this is
that I repeatedly notice a remarkable phenomenon. The band will seem very
quiet, maybe 2-3 QSOs in a 20 kHz segment, but then a rare (sometimes even
not so rare) DX station appears, and a pileup develops literally within
seconds, and becomes massive no later than the DX's second QSO. This
happens too fast to be the effect of a spotting net or computerized
spotting, I can only conclude that many operators are listening, ready to
pounce when the moment is right.

73,

Steve
AA4AK





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[roncasa]

Stephen W. Kercel wrote:

>
>> Ralph says:
>
>
>> There is CW out there but sometimes the activity does
>> seem sparse.
>
> ************************
>
> I'd wondered about that. I was completely inactive from July 1983 to
> November 2004, and I've noticed that the CW bands seem a lot less
> populated now than they did 20+ years ago. For example, last night as I
> tuned across the CW end of 40 m I heard maybe 6 QSOs. Admittedly, the
> geomagnetic activity has been high and propagation over the past week
> has been actively stinking.
>

There is fewer phone activity too.
I think its propagation related and not popularity.
During the contests the band is filled with CW ops

Ron wb1hga
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[Kevin Rock]

Many evenings, around 10:30 PM PDT, I sit in my bed getting caught up with
my technical journals with my headphones on listening to folks QSO on 40
meters.  I have a wire cut for 40 plus a counterpoise but the wires are
across the bookshelves of my room making them not too effective as
vertical radiators.  I find listening to CW while reading very relaxing.  
If I am working through a derivation of some long bit of an equation my
mind may not hear as much of the QSO but when I am done with the math the
CW comes back to the fore part of my brain while I read on.  Nice way to
get ready to sleep.  Thus, I think the answer to your surmise is yes,
there are a lot of folks listening but not sending.  There is a key beside
the bed but I've yet to use it from that position.  Maybe soon ;)
    Kevin.  KD5ONS


On Wed, 07 Sep 2005 09:53:35 -0400, Stephen W. Kercel
<[hidden email]> wrote:

>
>> Ralph says:
>
>> There is CW out there but sometimes the activity does
>> seem sparse.
> ************************
>
> I'd wondered about that. I was completely inactive from July 1983 to
> November 2004, and I've noticed that the CW bands seem a lot less
> populated now than they did 20+ years ago. For example, last night as I
> tuned across the CW end of 40 m I heard maybe 6 QSOs. Admittedly, the
> geomagnetic activity has been high and propagation over the past week
> has been actively stinking.
>
> On the other hand, I wonder if the sparsity of transmissions is really
> from fewer hams operating, or simply from fewer hams transmitting. I
> expect that quite a few operators do what I do, listen without
> transmitting until something genuinely interesting pops up. My reason
> for suspecting this is that I repeatedly notice a remarkable phenomenon.
> The band will seem very quiet, maybe 2-3 QSOs in a 20 kHz segment, but
> then a rare (sometimes even not so rare) DX station appears, and a
> pileup develops literally within seconds, and becomes massive no later
> than the DX's second QSO. This happens too fast to be the effect of a
> spotting net or computerized spotting, I can only conclude that many
> operators are listening, ready to pounce when the moment is right.
>
> 73,
>
> Steve
> AA4AK

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