As you can imagine, there’s been much consternation on the FISTS mailling list about the move towards eliminating the CW requirement. After beating this around for a while, the list then started focusing on the number of current operators who send poorly. While I’m not sure that there are more poor operators now than in the past, one theory is that the reason one finds so many slow operators and operators with poor fists is that there is no longer a Novice class.
In the past, the first license that most hams got was the Novice class license. For a while, Novices had some phone priviledges on the 2m band, but for the most part, they were restricted to CW on 80m, 40m, 15m, and 10m. They were able to hone their CW skills there, and by the time they upgraded, they had some solid CW experience.
Now, however, General class licensees need only pass a 5 wpm code test and then have almost full run of the CW bands. Many, if not most, of these new General class licensees have little or no CW experience. Is it any wonder, then, that these operators are not as polished as some?
Some of the guys mentioned that they simply were not answering calls from these inexperienced operators anymore. It just wasn’t “fun” to work these guys, they said. I certainly sympathize. I, too, have shunned contacts with these operators in the past. BUT, I now feel that we should do all we can to help these folks have fun and become good CW ops.
One reason for this is that we’re going to need all the CW ops we can muster in order to keep at least part of the shortwave bands devoted to CW. There’s going to be increasing pressure to reallocate these sub-bands to phone operators when no-code licensing becomes a reality.
Then, the question becomes how do we help these operators become better operators. Well, one way is to set a good example. Pay attention to how you operate and try to be the best you can at all times.
One fellow mentioned that early in his ham career, a guy sent him a copy of the article, “Your Novice Accent, and What to Do About It” by Keith S. Williams, W6DTY. Originally published in November 1956, it’s become somewhat of a classic. You can find it on at least two websites:
- http://home.satx.rr.com/kcomm/Article.html
- http://www.qsl.net/wb7rht/novice_accent.htm
What I might suggest is that when you work a ham whose operating technique could use some improvement, you find out his or her email address and send one or both of these URLs. To be diplomatic, you might want to say, “I read this back when I was a Novice (and when they actually had Novices!) and found it to be a big help. Also, offer to answer any questions that they may have.
You may p*ss off some guys doing this, but I think that most will respond favorably, and we’ll get a better group of CW ops out of it.
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