Hi Dave,
This reflector is not the right forum to talk about copying code maybe, so
I'll make a few comments and then drop the subject. However if you want to
discuss it, I'm certainly open to doing it via private email.
Dave, next month I will be 66 years old. There are about ten active east
coast hams who run QRQ and out of those ten hams, I'm next to the youngest!
The youngest one, I think, is 57. The oldest one is 85 and he can copy at
80 wpm. So age is not an impediment to copying high speed CW. There are,
however, several guys in their 20's and 30's that seem to have a real
interest in QRQ and I'm presently helping a couple of them.
I equate copying high speed CW to high school mathematics. Most all hams,
and not just the present day ones, complain about how hard it is to learn
code. If your told something is difficult to do, when you start out to do
it, you already have a mind-set that its not going to be easy. Same way back
in high school everyone always told you about how difficult algebra and
geometry was to learn, so when you went to those classes, you carried this
'I can't do this crap...it's too hard' mental attitude into class with you.
The people who excelled in mathematics were the folks who could close their
mind to the nay-sayers!
I think the only thing that may be a little hard to do is learning how to
copy in your head and going through a phantom, but real, speed hump around
55 to 60 wpm. The 'speed hump' is an area where you are copying well, but if
you miss one word, your mind just goes blank on you, trying to stop and
figure out the word that was missed....of course when you do that you loose
the rest of the information that's being sent to you, and naturally you get
frustrated. Unfortunately, there is no short cut, you just have to have
patience and just work through the speed hump. The good news is once you get
to where you can copy in the sixties, for what ever reason, going on up in
speed tends to be quit 'easy'. I'm sure I can't do it today, but in the past
I've been in many CW QSO's and roundtables, running full QSK, at speeds in
excess of 100 wpm. Doing things like that is some of the best fun I've had
in this hobby.
And 'fun' is the key word with QRQ, Dave. McElroy set his world speed
record basically for commercial reasons. What we do today, none of us have
any agenda for doing QRQ, other than just enjoying another part of the
hobby.
We could discuss it a little more, if you like Dave, but please contact me
directly.
73,
Tom - W4BQF
w4bqf@arrl.net
> I would dearly love to copy at high speed. I started
> learning the code at about age 8, gave it up in my
> late teens, got back at it at age 27 and passed my 10
> WPM test. Got my Advanced (15WPM) at age 48. At this
> point I could only copy by writing it all down so I
> started to learn copying in my head. Now, at 64, I can
> copy the W1AW bullitins at 18 WPM but not much faster.
> I can send, however, to about 40 or better with a
> single lever paddle and keyer. By contrast a friend of
> mine picked up the code as a young boy by listening to
> a ham friend who tapped out everything he was saying
> in morse with a pencil on the table.
> When it comes to CW ability we are not all created
> equal.
>
> Dave, VE1ADH
>
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