Guest post: Encouraging Weekday CW?
An interesting post was made to QRP-L today by Jim NX8Z. I agree wholeheartedly with what he says as I’ve noticed the same trend over the decades – not just on the QRP freqs, but throughout the CW sub-bands.
I’ll post my own thoughts as a comment so consider this a guest post for the purpose of propagating Jim’s thoughts to others who don’t read QRP-L. Tnx Jim.
de NX8Z:
I wish to make a proposal regarding CW ops that has probably already been
made, and I just haven’t stumbled across it yet. If so, my apologies.I am a retired ham and can operate on the HF bands during weekdays when
others may be at their day jobs. I am also an incurable CW (and QRP)
buff. My observation is that many times the CW segments are empty and
quiet during the daytime. You are probably thinking that I have lousy
radios and antennas or that I am stuck down in one of those West Virginia
“hollers” and can’t get out. I do get out from time to time. I send good
RST’s and get good RST’s. It just seems like most times, however, no one
is there.I tend to lurk around 7.040, 10.117, 14.040, 21.050, etc., and for much of
the time I cannot hear anything. I can set one of the rigs for an 8 kHz
bandwidth and can’t hear a hint of human life. I posted to the QRP skeds
page before it crashed and never got a single taker.I am second-life ham. In my first ham life, the HF CW segments were
packed. You could not stick your toe in the water. You always could get a
CQ answered; you could always answer someone. Often there was so much
crowding that you had to listen carefully for the particular tone of your
QSO. I would sometimes get up in the middle of the night just to escape
the crowd. Of course, I had my day job back then, but on days off it was
the same story – no lack of contacts. The CW segments sounded like
seagulls following the garbage barge!The proposal, humbly offered, is to see if one of the organizations (or
this list) could have some kind of initiative to encourage retired types
and others whose employment allows same to monitor certain band segments at
certain times on weekdays. I know you run into propagation issues, but if
you said something like 7.040-7.045 from 1400Z to 1800Z on Tuesdays, there
could be some people in range that you could QSO with. Wednesday could be
10.120-10.125 day, etc.Now I know what you are thinking. The contests and sprints draw out a lot
of people. You can hear frantic activity while these are going on. I’m
talking, however, about the ordinary humdrum day-to-day HF life on weekdays.It is becoming a little discouraging. I have pounded out hundreds (maybe
thousands) of CQs on HF weekdays and gotten nothing (and I believe I am
pounding on bands and at times that should propagate).With the removal of the code requirement there may be a slow, irreversible
migration away from CW and toward data modes and SSB (and that’s fine), but
surely there are a few CW types still hanging on during the daytime who
would like a quick QSO or a ragchew.If there is already such a collaboration, someone kindly point me toward
it, and accept my apologies for the bandwidth. If not, could we talk about
it? I would be delighted to work on it and invest some sweat equity in
it. I am a member of most of the mainline organizations: QRP ARCI, SKCC,
NAQCC, and GORC. Thanks all and 73/72!
.
.
Themocracy
It’s been years since I’ve had a long, drawn-out hour+ QSO on CW. They used to be common occurances but over the years, CW QSO’s have become hard to scare up. As a result, I’ve gone to where the CW is: DXing and contesting.
Totally different operating types, sure enough, but they provide the “CW fix” my mind needs and that the bands no longer provide.
When first licensed in 1978, you could pick any of the 5 HF bands any day of the week and would have to squeeze your way in to find a place to call CQ. 8PM, 10am – didn’t matter, as long as the bands were open.
It’s 1pm on a Thursday afternoon as I write this and a few quick spins of the VFO dial results in pile-ups for 7O6T (10, 17, 30m) and not much else. Nothing right now on 20m from 14.000 to 14.070 – nada! That was unheard of just a few short years ago. To suggest it would one day be the case would probably have gotten you laughed out of the conversation.
I guess in some corners, CW is seen as quaint and 2nd fiddle to the digital modes. With PSK31 and WSPR’s efficiency, what’s the big deal about CW? I’ve touched on one reason in a previous post but I’ll flesh them all out together soon. I’ve got my “selling points” for CW in my head – just need a few days to commit them to type.
In the meantime, I’m calling CQ on 14.040.
Just the same here in ZL(NZ)with all modes on all bands, I was fully licensed over 50 years ago and the sad decline has become more and more apparent as the years roll by.
My conclusion is that generally, the sad decline of values and standards worldwide is the basic reason. We now live in a world of laziness, benefits, plastic credit cards, and the like.
With all the gadgets on hand these days, paid for or not, time is wasted throwing toy after toy out of the cot, rather that getting on the air regularly.
73 de ZL1AQ
I agree with you Don, although admitting so publically reveals us both as Old Farts! Not opposed at all to technology, I have embraced the marriage of ham radio & computers in ways that are an asset to me – logging, QSLing, DX spotting and contesting. The digital modes just don’t do it for me – I’ve tried them and find them even more mechanical than a CW contest exchange…as if the computers are making the QSO rather than the humans on each end.
Hi,
I Love CW, maybe beause I was born on S.F.B. Morse’s birthday. “I’m continuous wave handy, continuous waves all the way: a real live nephew of my “Uncle Sam,” born on the same month and day!” Never used a microphone until I was Advanced Class; my Elmer loaned me a D-104 and I burned my lip on it one of the first times I used it! Still use an Argonaut 515 I bought new in 1981 and old J-38 that looks like it has been through a war, and may have been! Use 200 ft. dipole up 35 feet around roof parapet of our condo complex in St. Louis, fed with 450 ohm window line through MFJ-901B tuner. If any of youse wanna have a sked wid me, let me know via this site. I also have an NS-40 class E amp transmitter wid 7030 xtal and Neophyte 40 meter receiver that it may be fun to try.
72/73, Lou, N8LA
John,
I can understand the frustration.
When I was at my previous job, the pace there was less hectic that what I deal with now. On a regular basis I was able to get out to my car during lunch break. I would hook up the K1 to a Hamstick and get in a good 30 to 45 minutes of operating time.
I noticed the same thing – the bands were often dead. The County Hunters Net on 20 Meters always seemed to have activity. There was usually some DX to be heard; but a lot of times, 5 Watts to a Hamstick didn’t cut the mustard. It did enough times to always give it a go, though!
Stateside QSOs seemed to be pretty far and few between. But one thing I did notice. Daytime activity always picked up for the warmer months. I worked lots of guys who were camping or otherwise vacationing, who brought along Ham gear. There were also guys who vacationed at home and got on during the day.
While activity was nowhere where I would have preferred, I did nab some of the “rarer” states this way as I worked towards fufilling my goal of doing WAS for the second time – but all QRP and CW. South Dakota, Nevada and Nebraska, were all garnered during lunch time QSOs.
All we hear are complaints that our Ham population is getting older. You would think that would create a situation where retirees would fill the daytime airwaves, wouldn’t you? But alas, a lot of my retired friends (Ham and non-Ham alike)confide in me that they are busier now than when they worked!
73 de Larry W2LJ
Larry, when I used to work an hour north of you in White Plains, I had a 20m DSW velcro’ed to the dashboard of my Chevy with a Hamstik on the bed railing. Lots of DX to be worked with such a simple 2-watt set-up. No fuss and no computer required.
I guess I’ve come to think of CW as a “specialist mode” rather than a conversational mode – affording contacts that wouldn’t otherwise be possible w/o higher power, a better antenna or a computer to do its FFT’ing. I guess QRPers, early EME ops, 160m DXers, etc have always known that!
I tend to think that CW is alive and well, but indeed activity has shifted to mostly contesting. Why? It’s in a weekend and you can plan long in advance to keep the agenda clear. And you’re sure to work loads of DX.
I just don’t have the time during weekdays to get into the shack. In my late 30ies, have a job with quite some preparing to do at home after hours, and 2 little kids to raise – you get the picture. And frankly, since I know there hardly will be anyone to work except for the usual EU suspects during the day, I often decide to do other things, ham related or not, and save my shack credit for the contest weekends. Or just operate SR/SS openings on the lower bands hoping for DX.
I must say that some periods of the year are better, like holidays between Christmas and New Year when many people take a few days off from work and spend time in the shack. Or a late Friday night here / early evening on the West Coast helps too.
I’ve come to file the CW doomsday stories under ‘baloney’. There are still legions of passionate CW operators out there even among the younger hams. Look at the number of submitted logs in CW contests. We should just keep on using and promoting CW like we do now. For me, it’s the only mode that matches the magic of radio.