Phil,
You sure remind me why I love cw so much and still can't copy crap. I really need to fire-up Morse-it and really practice. Oh and get on the air. :) Then I need more hours in a day or start dumping all my projects. grin
Well I'm sure I'll get there yet. grin
73
On Jun 10, 2013, at 2:41 PM, Phil Scovell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Howard,
>
> You may be right; I just don't remember. I got my General in November of 66
> and after a few weeks of learning how to operate the Drake TR4 my mom bought
> me for a Christmas present, and because I had passed my general, I joined
> every CW net on 80 meters I could find. I soon learned, after the fun of
> sideband wore off, that CW was still my all time favorite mode. I could
> already copy 10 WPM when I took my 5 WPM novice test because I listened to
> nothing but CW on my old BC348 receiver that was my novice RX. Then when I
> took the 13 WPM general, I was copying 20 WPM as a novice. When I took the
> Extra class at 20 WPM, I could copy, and rag chew, at 40 WPM. In 1980 I
> bought my first CW keyboard and never went back. I join the CFO, Chicken
> Fat Operators, group on 40 and 20 and some days worked as many as a dozen
> high speed operators all in a single round table. We all worked QSK, break
> in CW, so it was like working vox on sideband contacts. I got so 60 WPM was
> my rag chew speed and on good days, I could run at 70. The guys I worked, a
> few of them, could copy 80 to 90 WPM. I proved it one day, not really
> believing what I was hearing, by putting Sandy, my wife, on the Curtis
> keyboard and setting it to 80 WPM. These guys, W1OBJ, W6Wu, VE7NH, and
> several others were on frequency. I told them Sandy would type and ask them
> questions. They kept answering her at 80 WPM and I finally told them to
> slow down to at least 50 so I could copy their replies and questions to her.
> They all rang chewed at 80 and some, as I said, could do 90. All the ones
> there that day, had men preset the Curtis keyboard to 95. Sometimes they
> got it and sometimes they didn't. W6PY was reported to be verified at 100.
> Sandy could type 120 WPM on the straight due to her job. I practice every
> day using the Morris Runner contest practice software and I start at 40 WPM
> and play contest for several minutes. I do it for brain stimulation. I
> make at least 33 contacts in the pile ups each day and sometime run it up
> all the way for 30 minutes. I'm about two WPM below 200 contacts per hour
> on good days and about 180 per hour on any given day. I find it as fun as
> actually being on the air sometimes. The CFO members, my number was 168,
> had to copy at least 30 to 40 to keep up with the group but we all ended our
> contacts with the chick cluck CW notes which saided like, dit dit dit dit
> dit daw or a long dash at the end sounding like a prolonged letter A. At 50
> to 80 WPM, it immediately reminds you of a chicken clucking. I can't do 50
> WPM any more without really focusing and I get tired of trying to copy it so
> don't practice that as much. I sit and copies some 40 meter guys who run at
> 60 WPM just for practice but I get more letters, and an occasional word, at
> that speed. All these guys I'm referring to were over 60 years of age so
> what am I doing at 61, haha. All I know is, even at 5 and 10 WPM, I still
> like CW the most. However, in 1981, when the bands were hot, I worked 295
> countries in that year alone and almost all were on sideband on 20 meters
> with my 4 element yagi at just 40 feet and running 700 watts output. I
> still worked a load of CW and probably worked well over 200 countries on CW
> alone that year. I have 316 countries now but I don't go after new DX much
> these days. I still like working DX but mostly on CW. If anybody thinks CW
> is a lost art, tune around in the DX CW contest. You will find guys still
> running 50 WPM and working guys one right after another. They take up the
> first 75 KHz on each CW band; wall to wall CW signals.
>
> Phil.
> K0NX
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Howard Kaufman" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, June 10, 2013 11:47 AM
> Subject: Re: Old Rag Chewers Certificate
>
>
>> I am not sure, but I think you got it by having a qso at 30 WPM or more.
>> I had it to. November of 1967 was a long time ago.
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Monday, June 10, 2013 12:12 PM
>> Subject: Re: Old Rag Chewers Certificate
>>
>>
>>> Gerry,
>>>
>>> I sure wish I would have kept my Braille novice log book and a couple of
>>> those old certificates. I had the brass pounders certificate, too, but I
>>> can't remember how you obtained that one.
>>>
>>> Phil.
>>> K0NX
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: "Gerry Learry" <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Sent: Monday, June 10, 2013 4:13 AM
>>> Subject: Re: Old Rag Chewers Certificate
>>>
>>>
>>>> I also got the real rag chewers certificate.
>>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>>> From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>>>> Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2013 7:47 PM
>>>> Subject: Old Rag Chewers Certificate
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> There use to be a ham thing called the Rag Chewers Club. You got a =
>>>>> certificate by talking to one ham for 30 minutes; phone or cw, it
>>>>> didn't
>>>>> =
>>>>> matter. Then there was the 6 hour QSO which you could only talk to one
>>>>> =
>>>>> person for 6 straight hours and there was another=20
>>>>> certificate for that. A blind friend of mine that got his license
>>>>> three
>>>>> =
>>>>> months before I did, and I, did both. So, there is lots to talk about
>>>>> =
>>>>> on the ham bands.
>>>>>
>>>>> Phil.
>>>>> K0NX
>>>>
>>
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