On Digital

[Bill Frantz]

I took a somewhat different path from Wayne, and as a result
fell in love with the digital modes.

I started as an electronics nerd in junior and senior high
school. I loved building electronics projects, especially kits.

There was a radio club in high school which encouraged me to get
my novice ticket. I still remember sometime in 1960, getting on
the Long Island Railroad to ride into Manhatten to take my test
at the FCC office. I had ridden the train into New York many
times before, but this time I turned way downtown instead of
uptown where I had gone on all previous trips. I arrived at the
FCC office more than a little bit scared. I managed to pass both
the written and code tests, and anxiously waited for my ticket
to arrive in the mail. When it did I was WV2NOO.

I rounded up SX-99 receiver and a Heathkit 40W transmitter kit,
and then I hit a serious snag. I am dyslexic and have a great
deal of difficulty with written English. However, CW QSOs are in
written English with a big does of CW OP jargon. The jargon I
could handle, but I could not get a string of letters to become
a word at any speed. Even now, I need to write them down before
I can recognize which word they represent. My novice year went
by with almost no QSOs.

Fast forward to the year 2000, 40 years later. Somewhere about
1975 I had learned to write English, although I was and am a
slave to spell checkers. My software startup has just gone
bankrupt. I was at loose ends and said to myself, "I'll study up
and get a no-code tech ticket. I have caving friends who use the
WA6BAI repeater in Kings Canyon National Park to communicate. I
can join them."

I studied the ARRL book and took the test. I aced the test and
the examiner said, "Why don't you take the general test, it
won't cost you anything." So I took the general test cold and
passed. I walked out with a database entry that became KG6JOH
and a piece of paper that said in essence, "Learn 5 WPM CW in
the next year and you can have a general."

I had learned 5 WPM 40 years earlier and figured I could do it
again. So I got the CW CDs and learned the code. At the same
time I studied for the extra exam because I wanted to stop
having to jump through hoops and just be a ham. Within the year
I had passed both exams and became AE6JV. But I still wasn't
doing very much on the air. I was one of those hams that build
equipment but rarely use it.


I joined the West Valley Amateur Radio Association (WVARA)
because the West Valley is where I live and I wanted to support
at least one open repeater to give back to the hobby and "pay"
for the open repeaters I used with my caving buddies.

WVARA takes Field Day very seriously. As a new member, I went up
to the site and saw the CW tent, the 3 SSB tents, and the
digital tent. I was invited into the CW tent to do some
operating. I declined because learning 5 WPM for the test
doesn't mean you can make it in the real world. I did a bit of
operating in a SSB tent, and then Phil, W6PK who was in charge
of the digital tent, invited me to do some PSK31 operating. I
had found my niche. PSK31 was like the computer chat rooms I had
supported in my last job. Typing I can do with my eyes closed
and the incoming words appeared in print, so I could read them
the way I read books, papers, etc.

I look back at my log and see the first 3 years as exclusively
PSK31 contacts. Then I branched out to RTTY for the North
American QSO Party. Finally in March 2013 I decide to try to
contact TX5K on Clipperton Island. On 15M I managed both a SSB
contact, and my first CW contact. I was decoding the CW both by
partially ear and partially with the K3. I was sending from the
K3's memory. After listening to my call many times in the
pileup, I could recognize it when TX5K came back with it and
press the other button to send the exchange.

Six months later, my log shows what I described as my first CW
QSO with Al, W6SQQ in Orange, CA. The log shows he was using a
K3 with a G5RV and had nice cool weather. I am sure I copied all
that by typing it into my computer and reading the screen. The
log from that time shows many digital contacts and a scattering
of SSB and almost no CW. Then came the W1AW portable operations.
I was hooked on contacting the W1AWs, and I made many more CW
contacts, but these were certainly not rag chewing. They were as
mechanical as the digital contacts when the operators just play
macros at each other.

These days, when I operate CW, I am either contesting or DXing.
In either case, the vocabulary is small enough that I can
recognize the words -- CQ TU 5NN ? -- without having to think
about the letters. If I need to think about the letters, I still
use a computer to change them into words, eliminating many of
the real advantages CW has. I can use a straight key, but slow
down alarmingly when confronted with a paddle.

Somewhere along the line, I managed to earn a DXCC and a Grand
Slam WAS -- WAS on CW, digital, voice. I still consider digital
to be my "home" mode. I have had many enjoyable rag chews on
PSK31, particularly with Michael, VE3NOO and Mary, KC9TIE.

As and example, today I got a LotW acknowledgment for a FT8 QSO
with Jim, ZL1LC. My log shows two other QSOs with him on PSK31.
It also notes that he operates from Waiheke Island, Oneroa with
a Icom 707 and a Cushcraft vertical. I don't know if we got away
from the macros, but certainly exchanged more that signal
reports and grid squares in those QSOs.

I will continue to struggle with CW and be happy that there are
so many modes people can use. Almost anyone can find something
that works for them.

73 Bill AE6JV

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Frantz        |"After all, if the conventional wisdom was
working, the
408-356-8506       | rate of systems being compromised would be
going down,
www.pwpconsult.com | wouldn't it?" -- Marcus Ranum

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