I have been using the Morse runner CW contesting program for what now?  a good 2 or 3 years I suppose.  Although CW contesting has been a favorite part of the hobby over the 44 years I've been a ham, I have never really honestly tried to compete, that is, I've never turned in any score.  Normally because I never work an entire contest but also because I've never had the antennas and power to really do that much other than a couple of years running a 4 element 20 meter beam but only at 40 feet and 700 watts, and then my 2 element 40 meter beam at 70 feet with 1.2 KW output.  40 was really fun and although I only worked the first 24 hours, I made 403 contacts in CQ worldwide CW with about 85 multipliers and over 90 countries.  I also worked one Japanese station long path about 2 PM in the afternoon Colorado mountain time beaming long path over South America which I had never done before.  the long path during morning hours during that November contest was unbelievable.  I worked over 250 Japanese stations in that first 24 hours, too.  However, back to Morse Runner.  I practice almost every day, even if I only make 20 or so contacts but some days I run 30 minutes before stopping.  So far, I have hung in there just under 200 contacts an hour so I'm pushing for the magic number some day.  I run at 35 and 40 WPM and change back and forth at various times for various reasons based upon how the program is sending pile ups at me.  I have, and this is the point of my message, learned two things and the first is a given.  I don't care how giant the pile up is, the loudest signal is always the one you end up working first.  For me, the second is something different.  In a pile up, I set the CW filter of the contest program to 600 HZ which is the widest setting.  I always like to hear what is going on around me but when the pile is deep during a contest run, my ear always tunes to the lowest pitch signal and even if that lower pitched signal is weaker than mid range signals and hi pitched signals.  Beats me as to why.  It reminds me of Bill, W0ZV who use to live here in Colorado.  He is, or was, one of the biggest low band, 160 and 80 meter D X ers in the world, besides K3UL, who is a blind guy.  Bill is now W4ZV.  Anyhow, Bill told me once, he always listens to signals at 300 Hz.  I can hear lower than that but even the week signals down in that range, capture my attention, as I said, over the mid to high pitch ranges of sound.  I even like my CW side tone to run about 400 to 450 Hz.  I've personally known several of the contest operators that use to operate every contest as a multi single all bands from a flat top 10,000 foot mountain with towers 100 to 150 feet and they had 6 towers at times with stack 6 over 6 on 20, for example, and other stacked arrays.  Now I know why.  The big signal always gets heard in the pile ups.

Phil.
K0NX