I agree with Steve that rag chewing on CW is a great way to build skills.
Not only will it build receiving skills, but keying or paddling skills as
well. Sending is sometimes more difficult, as it requires a manual
dexterity that receiving doesn't. Rag chewing will also force you to think
ahead about what you are going to say. In other words, to effectively rag
chew, you need to keep thinking about how to keep the conversation going.
Sometimes, I find this is the most difficult part rag chewing. Once you
have exchanged name, QTH, rig, antennas, wx, etc., just where do you go from
there can be a challenge. You need to find that common thread of interest
with the other party, and once you have done that, advancing the
conversation becomes easier.
Just some thots!
73, George, K5KG
------------------------
George I. Wagner
Sarasota, Florida
-----Original Message-----
From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of
steve.root@culligan4water.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2018 9:57 AM
To: rjairam@gmail.com; sawyered@earthlink.net
Cc: CQ-Contest Reflector
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] ARRL November SS is OK for the small station
Ria,
If you really want to become a good CW operator, then I might suggest you
consider ragchewing. You really can't improve your CW skills in a contest,
especially if you're using keyboard and macros to do all the heavy lifting.
However if you're in the middle of a ragchew you have to be able to send
manually and then copy whatever comes your way. I think you would be amazed
at the number of contesters that aren't capable of holding up their end in a
ragchew. However the best CW operators have no problem with it at all.
73 Steve K0SR
-----Original Message-----
From: rjairam@gmail.com [mailto:rjairam@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2018 12:18 PM
To: sawyered@earthlink.net
Cc: 'CQ-Contest Reflector'
Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] ARRL November SS is OK for the small station
My take - I am not a very good CW operator by any means.The long exchange at
high speed is frightening to me. I am afraid Iwill mess up and I can't
realistically run SS on CW. I think thisscares off a lot of people. I can do
a callsign copying contest likeARRL DX or CQWW just fine. I won't do as well
as I do on SSB contestsbut I can place top 10 or near to it. I gather for
many who aren'tbrought up in the CW tradition that they aren't really having
a goodtime struggling to copyHowever, the solution to this is not to shorten
the exchange.The solution is to get more people practicing copying SS
typeexchanges. I have no idea how this can be accomplished but I havebegun
to copy more of the ARRL code practice and others. This way myCW can get
better and I can then do serious effort SS.How do we do this on a large
scale?Now we have the ARRL saying that techs need to be enticed to upgradeby
giving them more PHONE privileges. Techs have full CW privileges(at 200
watts) on General sub -bands on 80, 40, 15 meters. Why aren'twe encouraging
more techs to try CW? The impression I get is that CWis treated as a hurdle,
an obstacle, rather than a new fun mode totry.73Ria, N2RJOn Mon, Mar 19,
2018 at 11:10 AM, Ed Sawyer wrote:> Interesting data about log submissions
for SS.>>>> CW logs received - 2008 (bottom of cycle) - 1417>>>> CW logs
received - 2017 (just released) - 1275>>>> SSB logs received - 2008 -
1870>>>> SSB logs received - 2016 (latest available) - 1626>>>> Virtually
every other major contest is growing - significantly - over the> past 10 and
20 years. SS has been in decline steadily on CW for a decade> (sunspots or
not) and SSB was pretty steady until last year's 200 log drop.> It will be
interesting to see 2017.>>>> Likely, there are an increasing number of SSB
casuals just working some> activity that don't submit a log and very few on
the CW side (my opinion).>>>> The CW problem seems terminal in my opinion
for this contest only. No other> HF cont est has such a poor trend that I
can find.>>>> SSB can probably stay interesting if enough casuals are
willing to figure> out the exchange.>>>> I don't see how changing the times
does anything other than make some people> frustrated - helping no one
needing any help - and CW SS can hardly afford> for any of the faithful to
call it quits.>>>> 73>>>> Ed N1UR (no dog in this fight - just getting some
data out there)>>>>>> _______________________________________________>
CQ-Contest mailing list> CQ-Contest@contesting.com>
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest_____________________
__________________________CQ-Contest mailing
listCQ-Contest@contesting.comhttp://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq
-contest
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
---
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG.
http://www.avg.com
_______________________________________________
CQ-Contest mailing list
CQ-Contest@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
|