In article , "Kim"
writes:

Wow, most of the CW operators I've known even state that all they "pretty
much" do is exchange information.

Not me.

Most of them also only use it during a
contest, though.

Not me.

Maybe that's the difference.

Of course. The 'phone and data folks do the same - get the QSO and on to the
next, which is what contests are all about. DXing is similar.

CW ragchewing is a completely different game. Tremendous fun once you have the
skills and a decent rig.

And CW can offer a feature most other modes don't - full break-in, or QSK. The
receiving op can interrupt the sending op just by tapping the key. Great for
traffic handling, too.

73 de Jim, N2EY

In article , Dwight Stewart
writes:

"N2EY" wrote:

(snip) But note this plain, simple fact: Almost all of
the FCC enforcement actions for "jerk-like" on-air
behavior (obscenity, jamming, failure to ID, exceeeding
license privileges, etc., etc.) are against hams using
PHONE modes, not CW/Morse or data modes. ALL of us have
taken written tests detailing what we should and should
not do on the air, but it seems like violations are much
more prevalent among the talkers than the brasspounders
or keyboarders. Why?


Very simple answer, Jim. The FCC has limited personnel today. The few they
have simply don't have the time to sit around listening, as code users pound
out their incredibly slow conversations, to catch violations.

HAW!

Actually, the differences in violations between the various modes isn't
that hard to understand. The phone modes dominate ham radio usage, therefore
it should be obvious more violations will occur in those modes.

True to a point - but HF/MF usage isn't that much slanted towards 'phone. The
ratio of cited violations is far greater than the ratio of users.

And since enforcement is complaint-driven, FCC monitoring activity isn't a
factor.

In addition,
phone users exchange information at a greater rate when compared to CW users

Some do. But in general, decent CW ops exchange info at a rate that is close to
that of people talking. Although the raw WPM is less, CW uses abbreviations and
prosigns, while 'phone tends to be full of pauses, redundancies and phonetics.

and conversations occur more often when compared to data users. Both of
these lead to greater opportunities for violations to occur. If all these
differences were factored in, I suspect the differences in violations would
be far less.

I don't think so. The worst I've ever heard on the CW bands was one ham calling
another a lid for tuning up and calling a DX station on the DX's freq after the
DX had clearly stated he was working split. The worst I've heard on the 'phone
bands I am too embarrassed to even describe.

It should be noted that the vast majority of hams behave very appropriately on
the
bands, regardless of mode or license class. But it only takes a few bad apples
to make all of us look bad.

73 de Jim, N2EY

Interesting. Of course, I never gave a hang for contests, but I recall the
RPN (Rochester Peanut Whistle Net) that we had years ago. We met evenings
on 15 CW. I'm trying to recall ... there was me (then WB2OSP), Tim WB2KAO
(still has that call), Greg WB2GLK (now a 4 call and I'm not sure ... I'd
have to look it up), Mike (WA2SEY now W2AV) and a couple of others. I can't
imagine us getting on a bunch of evenings only to state rrr tnx fer call ur
5nn here in Rochester,, ny (heck, we were all from Rochester!). I enjoyed
rag chewing, and preferred cw back then. When in the service, I usually
split my operating around 1/3 ssb, 1/3 cw, 1/3 rtty. I used to talk via
rtty with Norm, VK2NP, for hours on end. ssb and cw contacts were usually
in the range of 15 minutes to half an hour. Even a cw contact for 15
minutes did consist of far more than simple weather, rig, etc exchanges as
my cw contacts were fairly high speed cw (usually - although I did enjoy
dropping into the novice 40 or 15 meter bands to give a few folks a chance
to work something more than a couple of states away. Those were usually
limited as you imply simply by the limitation of slow cw). The cw contacts
close approached the limit of the rtty gear running a tape reader. rtty was
60 words per minute, too much for me, but at the time I had no problem
putting 40 words per minute perfect copy on paper and 50 words per minute
before I was struggling to copy it. Most of my contacts were between 30 and
50 words per minute cw. Come to think of it, a lot of voice contacts were
just what you mentioned - signal, weather, rig, name, and - oh yes -
*please* QSL.

Don't get me wrong; I don't care whether someone else want to learn code or
not; I just don't care for a bunch of folks who want to blame it for their
washing machines over-sudsing As far as carpel-tunnel, I never used a
straight key (although I could send decent code to about 22 and shaky code
to about 28 with one). A small amount of movement and the Hallicrafters
HA1-TO keyer took care of the tough stuff A few hours of cw contacts
never bithered me a bot.


73 from Rochester, NY
Jim AA2QA


"Kim W5TIT" wrote in message
...

Wow, most of the CW operators I've known even state that all they "pretty
much" do is exchange information. Most of them also only use it during a
contest, though. Maybe that's the difference.

Kim W5TIT





---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.507 / Virus Database: 304 - Release Date: 8/4/03

"Dee D. Flint" wrote in
y.com:


"Alun Palmer" wrote in message
...
"Phil Kane" wrote in
.net:

On Mon, 04 Aug 2003 07:41:03 -0400, Dwight Stewart wrote:

Very simple answer, Jim. The FCC has limited personnel today. The
few they
have simply don't have the time to sit around listening, as code
users pound out their incredibly slow conversations, to catch
violations.

For reasons that I disagreed with then and I disagree with now,
(but that's another story) the FCC' s enforcement response is
driven by complaints, not by "Patrolling the Ether" (tm) as in
days of yore.

How many complaints of amateur CW violations do you think "Riley"
gets? (Somebody pounding out "FU" in Morse on a Touch-Tone (tm)
pad on a repeater input does not count as CW....)

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon




So what do we call it then? I have certainly heard F-U-C-K sent in
Morse on a repeater.

Anything from an unidentified transmission to interference to jamming
for starters depending on the exact events. It probably violates a
number of FCC rules.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE



The point is that Phil is trying to say that jamming in MCW doesn't count
as jamming in CW, which is like trying to say that there's a vital
difference between using FM or SSB to jam.

"N2EY" wrote:

But it only takes a few bad apples to make all
of us look bad.


And the FCC should go after those bad apples, whatever their license
class. Ham operators should also informally ostracize the bad apples by not
talking to them or inviting them to participate in other activities. Like
the troublemakers in these newsgroups, these people are seeking an audience.
Deprive them of that and they often change their ways fairly quickly.


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/

Alun Palmer wrote in message .. .
"Dee D. Flint" wrote in
y.com:

"Alun Palmer" wrote in message
...
"Phil Kane" wrote in
.net:

On Mon, 04 Aug 2003 07:41:03 -0400, Dwight Stewart wrote:

Very simple answer, Jim. The FCC has limited personnel today. The
few they
have simply don't have the time to sit around listening, as code
users pound out their incredibly slow conversations, to catch
violations.

For reasons that I disagreed with then and I disagree with now,
(but that's another story) the FCC' s enforcement response is
driven by complaints, not by "Patrolling the Ether" (tm) as in
days of yore.

How many complaints of amateur CW violations do you think "Riley"
gets? (Somebody pounding out "FU" in Morse on a Touch-Tone (tm)
pad on a repeater input does not count as CW....)

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

So what do we call it then? I have certainly heard

(expletive deleted)

sent in
Morse on a repeater.

That's awful. I haven't heard anything that bad on the CW/data
subbands, though. Have you?

Anything from an unidentified transmission to interference to jamming
for starters depending on the exact events. It probably violates a
number of FCC rules.

Let's see: Obscenity, failure to ID, jamming, unauthorized use of a
repeater. For starters.

The point is that Phil is trying to say that jamming in MCW doesn't count
as jamming in CW, which is like trying to say that there's a vital
difference between using FM or SSB to jam.

No, that's not the point at all.

The point is that hams actually using CW/Morse for communications
don't gather anywhere near as many enforcement actions as hams using
'phone modes for communications. The difference is far more than can
be accounted for by the greater popularity of 'phone modes.

Is there a CW equivalent of the W6NUT repeater, 14,313 or 3950?

73 de Jim, N2EY

On 5 Aug 2003 08:22:13 GMT, Alun Palmer wrote:

So what do we call it then? I have certainly heard F-U-C-K sent in Morse
on a repeater.

It is intentional and usually unidentified interference to voice
communications (except if the repeater is running Packet or SSTV as
several of our club and/or ARES/RACES repeaters do). It is NOT
interference with CW/Morse communication or by a station in a
legitimate QSO using CW/Morse.

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

Oregon Tualatin Valley Amateur Radio Club

On Tue, 05 Aug 2003 14:36:33 GMT, Dwight Stewart wrote:

Actually, my comment was a joke, Phil. Notice the "wink face" after that
paragraph. But, you're right - the FCC does depend mainly on complaints. In
many cases (VHF, local issues, and so on), there isn't much else they can
do.

At one time the FCC was putting up a network of remote VHF/UHF
receivers in various cities for monitoring and single-bearing df
purposes. Access was dial-up with multiple passwords, and the
system piped audio and bearing info back down the line over
voice-over modems. The test installaton that we used the most was
in St. Louis, MO.

Boston, Washington, and Los Angeles/San Diego had integrated
networks of multiple receivers constituting a real df system for
what we today call "Homeland Security" purposes. The California
system was funded by the Coast Guard who was the primary client, and
it was used very heavily for marine safety and rescue purposes.

With the funding cuts (a.k.a. The Great Rape) of the mid-90s the
rest of the system never got built. I don't know if the CG kept
up the maintenance funding on the system as they were 'sposed to do.

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

(N2EY) wrote in message om...
Alun Palmer wrote in message .. .
"Dee D. Flint" wrote in
y.com:

"Alun Palmer" wrote in message
...
"Phil Kane" wrote in
.net:

On Mon, 04 Aug 2003 07:41:03 -0400, Dwight Stewart wrote:

Very simple answer, Jim. The FCC has limited personnel today. The
few they
have simply don't have the time to sit around listening, as code
users pound out their incredibly slow conversations, to catch
violations.

For reasons that I disagreed with then and I disagree with now,
(but that's another story) the FCC' s enforcement response is
driven by complaints, not by "Patrolling the Ether" (tm) as in
days of yore.

How many complaints of amateur CW violations do you think "Riley"
gets? (Somebody pounding out "FU" in Morse on a Touch-Tone (tm)
pad on a repeater input does not count as CW....)

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

So what do we call it then? I have certainly heard

(expletive deleted)

sent in
Morse on a repeater.

That's awful. I haven't heard anything that bad on the CW/data
subbands, though. Have you?

Anything from an unidentified transmission to interference to jamming
for starters depending on the exact events. It probably violates a
number of FCC rules.

Let's see: Obscenity, failure to ID, jamming, unauthorized use of a
repeater. For starters.

The point is that Phil is trying to say that jamming in MCW doesn't count
as jamming in CW, which is like trying to say that there's a vital
difference between using FM or SSB to jam.

No, that's not the point at all.

The point is that hams actually using CW/Morse for communications
don't gather anywhere near as many enforcement actions as hams using
'phone modes for communications. The difference is far more than can
be accounted for by the greater popularity of 'phone modes.

Is there a CW equivalent of the W6NUT repeater, 14,313 or 3950?

We're not quite above such things. You oughta been there the nite in
the early '70s when the Big Guns got together and decided to hammer
Radio Moscow off a freq around 7.030. You bet it worked, Moscow moved
up the band and didn't come back.

73 de Jim, N2EY

w3rv

In article , Dwight Stewart
writes:

"N2EY" wrote:

But it only takes a few bad apples to make all
of us look bad.

And the FCC should go after those bad apples, whatever their license
class.

I agree 100%. But FCC's are very limited, thanks to the mandate to "get the
government off your back" from 20+ years ago. And the general unpopularity of
things like taxes.

Ham operators should also informally ostracize the bad apples by not
talking to them or inviting them to participate in other activities.

I agree 100%. And many of us do.

But there are those who don't accept our "old fashioned values" and traditions.
Like not cussing or jamming on the air. Did ostracizing clean up 3950, 14313 or
W6NUT?

Like
the troublemakers in these newsgroups, these people are seeking an audience.
Deprive them of that and they often change their ways fairly quickly.

Sometimes. OTOH they sometimes cluster together and reinforce each other when
that is done. We had an example of that a few years ago on a local repeater.
Solution was to shut down the repeater when the bad apples showed up, which
deprived everyone of its use.

Total dependence on enforcement and peer group rejection is not adequate if
basic "social" values are not inculcated into people's thinking.

73 de Jim, N2EY