Interesting speed test

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Jeff,
Remember contesting uses a limited vocab.

[Jeff Pahl]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Jeff,
Remember contesting uses a limited vocab.

I know, but it's still annoying to those of us who struggle to be able to do it at all

People with musical inclination take to CW much better than those of us who struggle to play "Mary Had A Little Lamb". The military actually came on campus and recruited some of my wife's college classmates who were music or music therapy majors as high speed CW intercept operators. They were taught to be able to receive nonsense character groups at 50+ WPM (since anything they would be copying off the air would be encoded). That was "a few" years ago, I don't know if they still do that.

[Aren_Hill]

Must say i'd prefer texting, because I'm completely familiar with my qwerty keyboard and can use that familiarity for other things, morse code on the other hand would still be nifty


KDOHFT (very recently became licensed for the solar car team)

[gorrilla]

wow,

seems like alot of people have their liscence........

my dad and his dad used to do this. we still have all the equipment...

I should probobly go get my liscence.......

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by gorrilla

wow,

seems like alot of people have their liscence........

my dad and his dad used to do this. we still have all the equipment...

I should probobly go get my liscence.......

Yes,
Please do. What kind of equipment might they have? he asked with a smile.

[gorrilla]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Yes,
Please do. What kind of equipment might they have? he asked with a smile.

A bunch
1 receiver and transmitter and 1 "transciever"...
And alot of other random parts
And we have a large(50ft.)antenna pole......

.....I wanted to get it last year but never got around to signing up....

[Al Skierkiewicz]

When one asks this question, the other replies with models like Heath HW101, or Collins S-Line. Then the other smiles and replies with low whistles and "I used to have one like that." or "I wanted one of those when I was younger!"

[MrForbes]

I never got around to learning code, I probably should have....oh well....

and my boat anchor BC-348-Q sits right over my computer. It was converted to 120 VAC by a previous owner, I've had it over 20 years now.

[ay2b]

Someone (not me) should consider organizing a FIRST-net in Atlanta, if nothing else, so we can all say "hi". I'm not sure what repeaters are available in Atlanta (or which are reachable from within the bowels of the Georgia Dome), but I'd vote for something in either the 144 or 440 band. Perhaps 15 minutes before the pit opens, Thursday, Friday & Saturday?

I believe the official rules specify "no radios in the pit, field or spectator areas", but several exceptions have been officially made. Perhaps someone could post to the Q&A asking for an explicit exception allowing Ham Radios?

I'll happily bring my HT, if anyone else is likely to do the same.

N8UOB

[Molten]

Cell phones should come with a morse code capability. That could be fun.

[MrForbes]

you can text dots and dashes

[Nawaid Ladak]

i think it should be noted the guy with teh cell phone wasn't using a qwerty keyboard...

even with my HTC TyTN (ATT 8525... unfortunately my BlackBerry 8800 passed away tonight...) im able to type that message in under 30 seconds

im sure with my 8800, it would be somewhere between 18-22 seconds

[Team 135]

Originally Posted by ay2b

Someone (not me) should consider organizing a FIRST-net in Atlanta, if nothing else, so we can all say "hi". I'm not sure what repeaters are available in Atlanta (or which are reachable from within the bowels of the Georgia Dome), but I'd vote for something in either the 144 or 440 band. Perhaps 15 minutes before the pit opens, Thursday, Friday & Saturday?

I believe the official rules specify "no radios in the pit, field or spectator areas", but several exceptions have been officially made. Perhaps someone could post to the Q&A asking for an explicit exception allowing Ham Radios?

I'll happily bring my HT, if anyone else is likely to do the same.

N8UOB

That would be great...Someone please post times and freq info and I will be there, 144 or 440

[ay2b]

Originally Posted by Team 135

That would be great...Someone please post times and freq info and I will be there, 144 or 440

I sent email to the president and outreach chair of the Atlanta Radio Club (http://www.w4doc.org/) asking for permission and information about their repeaters. I haven't heard back yet, but I'll certainly let everyone know if/when I do.

What time do you think works best? The pits open at 7:15, 7:30 & 7:30 on Thurs, Fri & Sat, so I was thinking either 7am each day, or 15 minutes before the pits open each day, or when the pits close on Thurs & Fri, and nothing on Saturday.

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by gorrilla

I should probably go get my liscence.......

Yes. Yes, you should. Even if you never use Morse Code, having a small radio to communicate over several miles, just spending time talking on shortwave, or any of the new digital modes which really CAN easily decode a signal that is really inaudible under the noise.

Originally Posted by Molten

So approximately 2 letters every second. This is an amazing pace. All of this is neglecting any spaces and such. Now, I realize that in reality he probably abbreviated a lot.

I assume you mean the texter, not the Morse code guys. I read an interview with the radio guys that appeared in a ham radio magazine a few months after, and they said that they sent every single letter, and they sent it slowly on purpose. As mentioned, 35 WPM (that's almost 3 letters per second!) is not terribly unusual.

Originally Posted by Team 135

I like to see that code is still in use.

Oh yes, just listen in the CW portion of the band anytime. In fact, there is more activity now than before.
(And, for all you kids out there - Morse Code is a great secret language)


The key thing to remember is that CW has had several decades to be optimized. Pressing a key up to four times to get out a letter is highly sub-optimal - especially when you consider the most common letter - E - as requiring two presses. Highly inefficient.

What makes me laugh the most is that the kid receiving the message makes a motion like "oh darn, we lost" - he actually thought that they would win!

What remains important to remember, though, is that Morse Code requires some skill, while texting does not.

Don