CW is my preferred operating mode and, while I hate to be a pessimist, I'm 
forced to agree with what Jim says here. I'm 61 and the vast majority of 
folks I work on CW are older than I am. Of the relatively few younger folks 
getting interested in ham radio these days, not many are attracted to CW. So 
its inevitable that CW, if not ham radio itself will die eventually. Simple 
attrition will see to that as good ops die and No one is there to take their 
place. One thing that might prolong ham radio's  existance is guys and gals 
coming back to the hobby as they have more time in later life. That's what I 
did in 02 and its been a constant source of enjoyment since then. So if ham 
radio in general and CW in particular must die, let's hope and pray that its 
a long, slow decline. 73 and see you on the bands. lou
Lou Kolb
Voice-over Artist:
Radio/TV Ads, Video narrations
Messages On-hold:
www.loukolb.com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Shaffer" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 9:52 AM
Subject: Re: What CW Isn't


> I'm sure many of us have noticed that if you get on CW these days and rag
> chew, you'll be hard put to find an operator under 60 years old.  It's
> probably a good thing we have so many contests, otherwise the CW bands 
> would
> have little activity.  I actually notice less activity on HF in general, 
> all
> modes.  I'm sure most of the new hams are spending time using digital 
> modes
> on VHF/UHF.  VHF/UHF is, in addition, being essentially promoted by the 
> home
> owners association restrictions.  Like many on this list, I can't have a
> tower and beam where I live now.
>
> By the way, I'd mentioned on this list some time ago that I was getting a 
> 29
> foot Zerofive vertical.  Well I got it up back in mid February, and it's
> been working great.  I can tune it on 6 through 80 meters including 60
> meters.  I've worked a lot of dx with it.  It out performs my dipole,
> especially when transmitting.  There are situations when the dipole is a
> better receiving antenna than the vertical, while the vertical out 
> performs
> it on transmit.  This has a lot to do with signal/noise of course, the
> vertical being noisy by nature.
> --
> Jim, KE5AL
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: Howard, W A 9 Y B W
> Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2014 5:07 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: What CW Isn't
>
> Currently, there are approximately three quarters of a million licensed 
> Hams
> in the United States
>
> 73
>
> Howard #3
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, April 28, 2014 11:34 PM
> Subject: What CW Isn't
>
>
>>I never figure the code made somebody a better operator but when I was a
>> novice in 1966, I read somewhere there were about 150,000 licensed hams.
>> What are there now?  I read sometime back there were 450,000 hams in the 
>> U
>> S
>> alone and something like 2 million in Japan or something like that.  Of
>> course, we didn't have satellite communications back then and CW was a
>> requirement for emergency communications nationally.  With sats and cell
>> phones, that's not so important any longer but look at those places after
>> tornadoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes.  Cell phones are worthless then
>> but
>> battery and generator powered ham stations still work pretty good.  I 
>> used
>> to love to listen to the CW operators aboard ship talking to each other 
>> or
>> to land based operators but that's long gone, too.  75 meters, and to 
>> some
>> degree 20 meters, have always had operators of bad behavior.  The side
>> band
>> wars on 75 back in the early and mid sixties between SSB and A M 
>> operators
>> who never wanted to change were amazing.  I hear groups even on 20 side
>> band
>> today with 5 to 10 guys in the group, all friends apparently, who won't
>> acknowledge a new comer or if they do, they make fun of whatever it is he
>> wants; usually just to join their conversation.  That's one thing you
>> don't
>> often hear on the CW bands, haha.  Too much work to yell at somebody who
>> can
>> filter you right out.  One night, when I had my 40 meter 2 element beam,
>> two
>> Mexicans SSB guys were sitting right on 7002 and they both were really
>> loud
>> and taking up all the 5 KHz of the bottom of the band.  A guy, who is
>> probably passed away now, had a 5 element beam in California so he was a
>> big
>> gun on 40 meters.  These X E stations, at least one of them anyhow, were
>> about 40 over S9 here in Colorado.  I heard this W6, I forget the rest of
>> his call, but his name was Sam I think, try, using CW of course, to get
>> those guys to move out of the bottom of the band.  Of course, they paid 
>> no
>> attention to him so I called CQ on top of them and this W6 answered me 
>> and
>> we talked for about 10 minutes on CW, our beams pointed right at them,
>> before they finally moved.  Did you know that many countries haven't ever
>> required a CW test at all?  The Mexico signals are loud even on 75 side
>> band
>> here in Denver and through the southwest so sometimes that amp and big
>> antenna comes in handy.
>>
>> Phil.
>> K0NX
>>
>
>
>
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