This problem comes up every year and will only get worse with time.
All of the nasty FT1000's and other radios will be around until we
all pass away. Those radios are not going to be tossed out.
This is an amateur community problem that not only affects
contesters, it affects OTHER operators as well. If the radios we all
used were designed properly, the entire CW contest could probably fit
into the lower 50kHz and not spread up the band.
When I say properly I mean just that. Every single part they need to
reduce clicks are already in the radios, the manufacturers either
don't understand CW or don't care.
> Ron, N4XD wrote:
>
> "Now if only we could find a company to step up to the plate......."
> ========== Most, if not all, of Kenwood's radios are click-free,
> although they do not currently manufacture a competition-grade radio.
>
> Ten-Tec's new Orion (not yet being shipped) has user-adjustable CW
> wave shape as one of its features.
>
> 73, de Earl, K6SE
W4AN made a good point Earl.
If you can cause clicks, it is to your advantage.
I operated only a little while in the contest, and a W3 who is a good
operator was forced down almost zero beat with me. With this 20 over
9 W3 just 200 or 300 cycles way, it was impossible to hear weaker
Europeans calling me. I listened up above him and understood what he
meant. No wonder he snuggled 3/4 of the way down against me instead
of sitting next to the VY2.
My first reaction, before I thought about anything, was the same as
W4AN. If we are going to bother each other, might as well do it
right. I slid up on the W3's frequency. But I wouldn't work many
Europeans that way, or weaker USA, and most important is wasn't a
good thing to do.
My next consideration was moving my cathode keyed DX100 down to 160
and running it. That certainly would eventually force the W3 up away
from me and keep my receiving frequency clear, but it would ruin the
band for people below me.
My final conclusion, after realizing he was between a rock and a soft
place (keying waveforms), was to just go away and work 80 meters.
The contest didn't mean enough to me with all the needless QRM. It
just wasn't enjoyable. It was more like watching a old fashioned
Georgia Cock fight or Pit Bull fight than good sport.
Now here is what bothers me about the TenTec design Earl. What you
have essentially done is give people a choice of anything from wide
nasty keying to clean keying. I'm sure that is a long term mistake,
because human nature is some people will run the nasty keying just to
keep people away from them. I would have done it myself if I had a
switch to flip. It may be worse for us all than living with fixed 2-
3mS keying rise and falls.
What manufacturers need to do is very simple and won't cost them a
dime. They need to run the CW signal THROUGH the CW filter that is
selected for the receiver, and not give the user an option. Bandwidth
of the transmitted signal will be set at the receive bandwidth. If
you wanted to dish it out, you would have to take it.
73, Tom W8JI
W8JI@contesting.com
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