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Whoa, Nellie.	Reply
by K5END on October 23, 2008	Mail this to a friend!
Was using G4FON with Linux Ubuntu Wine and felt pretty good about the progress. Was knocking on 15 WPM's door. Now tried it on XP and it's hard as heck to copy. Still investigating. Hard to understand why, because I've been copying real QSOs on 40 meters. Had to find my electric typewriter to keep up with copy on the air. Still a little clumsy with the key, so haven't gotten the nerve to embarrass myself on the whole band. Heck or high water I'll do my first CW QSO this weekend.

RE: Whoa, Nellie.	Reply
by WA9UAA on October 24, 2008	Mail this to a friend!
Hi OM, Really, just get on the air! Tell the op that it's your first CW QSO, all you'll get is congrats. 73, Rob WA9UAA

RE: Whoa, Nellie.	Reply
by N8CPA on October 27, 2008	Mail this to a friend!
Like the man said, just get on the air. SKCC now has a specific Elmer frequency for the those just starting out on CW. Members monitor 7.114 specifically for key frighted beginners. Just call CQ, someone will answer. Steve SKCC #8

RE: Whoa, Nellie.	Reply
by K5END on October 27, 2008	Mail this to a friend!
met the goal and got 'er done this weekend. contesting had packed the bands so I modified a dipole to work on 17 meters. heard a CQ from 6-land and I answered. am now a CW/OM, haha. had a lot of trouble with the paddle sliding around--probably sort of an adrenaline thing going on in the fingers. had to hold the paddle down with the left hand while sending. tried the paddle again with the K5 side tones after the qso and adjusted the clearance and tension. will also fix it a little more securely some way or another. ready for the next one now. :) for the G4FON on Windows, it truly is running faster than the effective word speed I set. no wonder. going back to Linux...again. thanks for the tip on 7.114. will try that on weeknights. is there EVER a non-contest weekend where all but the WARCs and 160 are heavy laden?

RE: Whoa, Nellie.	Reply
by N8CPA on October 27, 2008	Mail this to a friend!
This coming weekend is the CW Sweepstakes. It's a two edged sword. The first edge is that the CW portions of 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 will be packed with participants--myself among them. But the WARC and phone subbands will be unaffected. The other edge of that sword is that there is no better opportunity to boost your CW speed by several WPM, and get WAS in a single weekend. The limitation of that is that CW contest speed and CW ragchew speed are two different skillsets. But if CW contest speed does nothing else, it increases your confidence to attain ragchew speed goals.

RE: Whoa, Nellie.	Reply
by K5END on October 27, 2008	Mail this to a friend!
Maybe I'm missing something, but contesting doesn't do much for me at all, unless it is something local like TQP or something like FD. With my antennas there is not much point in competing with 150' towers with huge beam antennas. It would be like David and Goliath, but when David forgot to take his slingshot. I would like to work all states and work all continents, and maybe even dream to work all 254 (give or take) counties in my home state (a few TX counties are hardly populated.) I would like to get DXCC also, but if it means sending several dollars each for a foreign QSL card, I'm not interested. As far a charts and awards on the wall for contacts and contests, it is something to admire. But it is not for me. I don't even care about validating the QSO cards. But, hey. I could get interested. Ya never know.

RE: Whoa, Nellie.	Reply
by WB5NPW on October 28, 2008	Mail this to a friend!
What i did to keep my paddle from sliding all over the place is i took an old thick-foam cloth covered mouse pad and cut holes in it for the paddle feet. I found it worked best for me if i put the front foot of the paddle over the edge of the mouse pad and the two back feet in the pad, my hand rest on the pad and helps hold it in place. of course it took a few tries to get it right and the old mouse pad looks like swiss cheese :) ... congrats on getting on cw.

RE: Whoa, Nellie.	Reply
by K5END on October 28, 2008	Mail this to a friend!
Thanks. You're in good company with the mouse pad idea. Several OM's have mentioned that. It must work.

RE: Whoa, Nellie.	Reply
by VA7CPC on October 28, 2008	Mail this to a friend!
_Of course_ you won't get scores like the Big Guns. But that's not relevant. You _will_ get to work a whole bunch of stations you wouldn't work otherwise. You're not competing _against_ the Big Guns, you're competing _with_ them. It's one big free-for-all ballgame. Even if you're not in the major leagues, you'll get to catch some balls. Charles

RE: Whoa, Nellie.	Reply
by K5END on October 29, 2008	Mail this to a friend!
"You're not competing _against_ the Big Guns, you're competing _with_ them. " No. I want to win first place, all the time. If I can't be the biggest baddest lid, I mean, kid, (oops, srroy tpyo--maybe a Freudian typo?) on the block, I'll just take my toys and go home. (you DO realize I'm joking, right?) But seriously, you make a good point about working stations I would not otherwise. That is a good way to look at it. Thanks. The first big rush of the hobby was when I worked a station in the South Pacific. The second big rush was working the first CW QSO. I would really like to work Antarctica someday, but that can't be easy--which is probably why it appeals to me.

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