On 23 Jul 2003 09:32:11 -0700, (N2EY) wrote:

Radio Amateur KC2HMZ wrote in message . ..
On 14 Jul 2003 11:56:26 -0700, (N2EY) wrote:

I'm not all that fond of CW, insofar as it's not one of the things I
personally enjoy doing. CW ops, like any other fellow ham, are welcome
around here any time.

Thanks.

You're welcome - as I already stated. :-)

As for not eating each other, someone else's
comment about CQ WPX seems to be as good or better a retort than I can
think of at the moment.

I think he was referring to CQ WW dx contest and the level of
competitiveness displayed.....

I'm sure he was. I thought it was a good humorous comment, and since I
couldn't top it...

Godwin's Law still holds.

I don't know (or care) who Godwin is (or was). As for Godwin's Law,
unless it was passed by a duly authorized legislative body and signed
by the appropriate chief of the executive branch, it is neither law
nor binding.

Godwin's Law still holds.

Tell Godwin to hold on to this awhile.

- however, I have not disputed that CW is
a useful communications skill. Any communications skill is useful in a
communications hobby, and any technical skill is useful in a technical
hobby. For me to claim otherwise would be illogical.

There are those on the nocodetest side of the fence who take the
illogical stand that Morse/CW is not useful, outdated, etc.

As far as the rest of the radio world is concerned, it is outdated.
The ARS is the last remaining radio service that still uses it as a
primary method of communication.

The operative question is how much something has to be useful in order
to qualify to be tested.

Exactly. There was once a time when CW was so prevalent in the radio
world that knowledge of Morse was vital to one's success in radio.
That is no longer the case today except for one minor detail, that
being the fact that the code test is still part of the licensing
requirements. Whether you or I or anyone else in the ARS likes it or
not, that's likely to change at some point within the next few years,
so those of us (myself included) who continue to debate the point are
beating a dead Morse...er, I mean, horse.

What I am
disputing is the notion put forth by K3LT that one needs to have
acquired CW proficiency in order to form an opinion as to whether one
wishes to pursue that aspect of the hobby or not...an assertion which
I find equally illogical.

Perhaps the confusion arises because there's a difference between
judging something's usefulness and judging whether someone wants to
use it. A Harley Davidson motorcycle is certainly useful and desirable
(IMHO) but at this time in my life I am not going to pursue having
one.

Similarly, the skill to copy Morse at 75 WPM is certainly useful and
desirable but at this time in my life I am not going to pursue
developing it.

Although on occasion I have managed to receive signals with a radio
that had no antenna connected to it - and have actually even found it
very useful indeed to try to do so - I'll concede that one gets a much
better handle on current conditions on an HF band by listening to a
receiver that has at least a reasonable facsimile of an antenna
connected to it.


Point I was making is that some folks have claimed "nobody uses CW
anymore" etc. without any real knowledge of is current use.

Well, neither of us can really account for people who have their
opinions spoon-fed to them by somebody else instead of developing
their own, can we? Speaking for myself, though, I've been a radio
hobbyist for over three decades now. I think I have enough experience
to have knowledge of its current use.

The U.S. military has abandoned it. Commercial maritime HF radio has
abandoned it...yes, some ship-to-ship ragchewing between radio ops
still goes on, but try contacting a commercial shore station on CW to
send or receive message traffic. Aviation has abandoned it. Outside of
the ARS, the easiest place to find Morse in use is on your scanner,
where repeaters used by public safety and business still identify in
Morse. Given that, I find it ironic that in the ARS, the last bastion
of Morse communications, most of the repeaters have voice ID'ers.

2) There's a 'phone contest going on, and most of the 'phone ops are
working the contest - on another band.

...where conditions are apparently better since they support phone on
that band? Then why haven't the CW guys moved there as well, to take
advantage of the better band conditions?

Because the type of operation desired is different. Example: Suppose
there's a 'phone DX contest going on, it's the bottom of the susnspot
cycle, and the bands above 15 MHz are open. Most of the hams in the
contest are going to be on 15 and 10 meters trying to gather as many
countries and QSOs on those bands while they are usable. The
distribution of hams using 'phone will be heavily concentrated in
those bands.

Meanwhile, hams who are working CW (and obviously not interested in
the contest) will be distributed differently among the bands. Since
much of the DX is working 'phone, the CW ops will probably be looking
for ragchews, and may be on bands like 40 and 80, which are more
suited for non-DX when the upper bands are open.

OK, agreed. Many of the non-contesting phone ops will probably be
doing the same, in fact. They'll go to the lower frequencies because
conditions there are better suited to their intgended activity - and
to avoid the congestion on the higher frequencies that results from
all the contesters operating on those bands. Makes sense to me.

Consider also that not all contests involve the WARC bands, further
shifting things.

I'm no expert on contesting, but I hear very little contest activity
on the WARC bands - at least on 12m and 17m anyway. Haven't spent much
time listening to 30m except to listen for signals for the purpose of
gauging band conditions.

CW ops do not have the bottom part of ANY HF band to themselves. We
have to deal with digital ops and an ever-increasing number of foreign
'phones.

Quite correct, of course, and although it slipped my mind when I was
posting the comments, I am aware of that - at least with respect to
the digital signals anyway. I must admit that I hadn't considered the
fact that there are many foreign phone ops down there who aren't
subject to the same farming of spectrum by mode that U.S. ops are.
However, I'd expect the digital signals to cause more problems for CW
ops, since filters can get rid of phone signals much more easily.

3) The 'phone bands become obnoxious enough that folks go to CW just
to have a decent QSO.

Well, if we're going to clutch at straws here,

How is that "clutching at straws"?

In posting that comment, I took the word "obnoxious" to refer to
frequencies being inhabited by...well, by the kinds of folks that give
the rest of the ARS a black eye. Listen on certain frequencies long
enough and you'll be treated to a command performance.

In retrospect, though, it occurs to me that you may have simply been
referring to the volume of phone traffic one may observe on a band
during a phone contest. There's not a lot of room left for ragchewing
on phone, so I can see where guys might drop down to the bottom of the
band and use CW, especially if the alternative is to try to gut it out
on another band where conditions aren't as good for the contact(s)
they want to make.

then we might as well also include:

4) One has tuned to the 30 meter band, where phone is not permitted.

Yup.

In retrospect, other digital modes are, which, as you've already
pointed out, is a factor that should be considered.

If someone "knows" something but cannot articulate to someone who
doesn't, does the first person really "know" it?

I believe so. I know how to get to a certain hamfest from my house. I
doubt that I could give someone directions that would allow them to
arrive at that hamfest without getting further directions from someone
else. I may not be able to articulate how to get there, but I "know"
how to get there, and will prove it this Sept. 27 when I again hop
into my van and drive there, just as I have every year since getting
my ham license (it's only a three-hour ride).

Good example! Which 'fest, btw? Biggest I've ever been to is
Rochester.

The one I had in mind is held in a little town in Chemung County, NY
called Horseheads, but it's usually referred to as Elmira because
Elmira is relatively close by and is better known than Horseheads.
Elmira has other claims to fame. Horseheads is the site of the Chemung
County Fairgrounds, which is where the hamfest in question is held,
but beyond that it's best known for being the place they usually end
up catching convicts who escape from the state prison that's not far
from there. The last two - both convicted murderers who escaped a few
weeks ago using the old "tie the bedsheets together to make a rope"
routine (literally) - were found sleeping in a van in the parking lot
of the supermarket just down the road from the fairgrounds. But, I
digress...we now return you to our regularly scheduled discussion,
already in progress.

However, your example could be used to back up the claim that someone
without CW skill can't really know its capability. You know the route
but can't explain it to someone who wants to know. Larry knows the
capability but can't expalin it to someone who doesn't want to know.
Similar...


Kinda like the old
saying "if you have a thing 'someplace', but you can't find it when
you need it, then you don't really have it, do you?"

No, you don't.

'zactly.

However, what we're discussing here isn't a material
thing, but rather, an idea. How does one manage to misplace an idea?
"Sunuvagun, it was right here in my cerebellum a minute ago!" :-)

Variously called "halfheimer's" (remembering half of something) and
"cerebral cortex 404 error".

Around here it's simply called CRS...can't remember stuff.

73 DE John, KC2HMZ