Yes, that all makes sense to me, Mike. I guess another mitigating factor is 
that you're only exchanging 5-9-9 and maybe a state so, even if the other 
station is not used to operating at a high speed, they can copy the W1AW 
station since they know exactly what they're listening for. If I were to 
come up with a workable logging solution, as some of you obviously have, I 
might be interested in operating for Pennsylvania in December. Sure seems 
like fun and a great way to stretch one's ham skills. Great job! Lou
Lou Kolb
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Duke, K5XU" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2014 10:43 PM
Subject: CW Speed for Special Event Stations


> Lou,
>
> You touched on the subject that is often highly debated in
> CW circles, especially when it comes to contests.
>
> The dilemma is this:
>
> Of course, the higher your speed, the more contacts you can
> make within a given amount of time. But that only holds true
> if you can find enough other stations who can match your
> speed.
>
> For most of my operating this past week, I used my now 22
> year-old MFJ CW keyboard. Most of the time, I had it set at
> either 25 or 22 WPM.
>
> If I hit a string of stations, maybe 6 or 7, who were
> sending faster than me, I would speed up to 30 WPM, and
> maybe once or twice to 35. (I'm not much good above that.)
> Every time I did that, my qso rate fell off because I was
> sending beyond the copy speed of the average station. When I
> dropped back to 25, the qso rate would increase.
>
> I noticed little difference between the qso rate at 22 and
> 25 WPM, but above 25, it became obvious very quickly.
>
> I think what was probably happening was that a lot of people
> who are on average pretty good CW operators, but who are not
> big contest operators were trying to work us on CW. So,
> whenever I started to out run them, they either waited for
> me to slow down, or simply went away.
>
> A few times, when not much was happening at any speed, I
> slowed to 15 WPM. While I didn't make a lot of contacts at
> that speed, I found that more people were matching my
> sending speed, and fewer were sending faster than me.
>
> One other deduction from all that is that if you send fast
> enough, sooner or later somebody will, as it were, challenge
> you to a race.
>
> Overall, I heard a lot of very good CW, and encountered more
> good operators than bad ones.
>
>
> Mike Duke, K5XU
> American Council of Blind Radio Amateurs
>
>
>
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