I'm not a contester......

martinedwards

but this weekends wpx cw contest has given me a new US state (New Mexico) and a new country (French Guyana)

roll on Monday when things quieten down and I can actually TALK to someone.......

thelordgod

Yes the contests are awful and take over most of the bands. The worst thing is that a lot of contest operators make errors while logging up to 25% of QSO's so you possibly wont get that new country confirmed either. Having said that I worked Aruba confirmed during one of the contests at the end of March and got a card back so you never know. Sometimes islands are activated for contests (which are ideal surrounded by water) and are in high demand. Its a pity that contests generally are not restricted to a certain portion of each band to be fair on everyone.

CQ Contest 59 73

martinedwards

73?

seriously?

you gotta be joking!

thelordgod

martinedwards wrote: »

73?

seriously?

you gotta be joking!

Yes I suppose I was overdoing it

thelordgod

Ah yes a CW contest - that's why I didn't notice it. It will be a while before I try to add that to my license.

telecinesk

What is CW?
Oh god, contests, the plague of ham radio.. They should only be allowed top band, and leave the rest alone. Think standing on end of a platform with a notepad is more exciting .)
5973hi etc.. yup, me neither is a fan..

roll on 4M & 6M , that time of year finally.. (suppose each to their own)

watty

thelordgod wrote: »

CW ... It will be a while before I try to add that to my license.

There is no extra licence needed to do CW. Even in old days if you only had VHF & UHF bands, you could do CW on those without the morse test.

The morse test is largely optional. There may be some places you'd visit that need it for HF or full power, but it's not needed in Ireland.

thelordgod

I was wondering about that all right - I have seen a few on the DXCC CW list with a B license. Its not a priority as I don't have a musical ear at all and I don't think I would master it. But I'm sure others have said the same and got there. But I have plenty to work on for the moment - I've only 120 odd countries worked since I started on HF at the end of February and haven't even got near 6m yet.

watty

thelordgod wrote: »

I don't have a musical ear at all and I don't think I would master it.

People use computers. A 104 button bug key. Even in 1930s a teletype could prepare a tape to automatically send morse.

Decoding with a PC isn't so good, unless the other end is an ex marine radio op. You'll find contesters decode well. They are using PC to send, or stored sequences in a rig.

Fred Swanson

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watty

The CW contests are about your radio, aerial, operating, not about CW skill. So it's not cheating.
Very few CW operators use a straight or on/off key. They often use a bug key, one way is dash, the other is dot. Hold the key left or right and you get a string of dots and dashes (or vice versa, I forget which directions). A box is available for old transmitters, but many modern rigs can take a 3 way jack and dumb bug key and a menu sets the speed to suit how fast you can operate.

GekkePrutser

I don't see the fun in contesting either. Nobody is interested to speak a word except '59 QSL please bye bye'. They don't even bother to report signal strength and readability accurately. 59 for everybody.

But some people love it.. A dedicated subband would be nice but it doesn't bother me at the moment as I have no space for HF antennas unfortunately. But I have to admit I'm not all that interested anymore because of this.

Fred Swanson

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watty

AFAIK that's all they ever were.

I don't collect stamps either.