Band conditions have been just horrible here lately during the day. Yesterday, a friend asked if I would meet him down at the Hands-On Museum and give his grandchildren an amateur radio demonstration. I was able to eke out a couple of very weak QSOs on 20m SSB, but I could only copy about half the time, and I’m sure the kids could just barely make out that there was someone there. 40m was even worse. The kids were very polite, but it was disappointing not to be able to do better.
I like 2m FM club nets. I think that they encourage camaraderie among the hams in an area and can just be plain fun. If you participate in one or more—and you should—consider volunteering to be net control once in a while. It’s fun and good training should you ever be called upon to do so in an emergency or for a public service event.
When I’m net control, I try to keep an upbeat banter going. I ask people about how they are doing, what amateur radio projects they might be working on, and joking with them about this or that. I also try to coax the lurkers out of the woodwork. If I get no response to the question, “Anyone else want to check in tonight?” I’ll say, “Oh come on, I know there are some lurkers out there” or something like that. Quite often, I do get some other stations to check in.
I don’t know why but the use of what used to be common abbreviations seems to have fallen out of favor in CW operation. For example, instead of simply sending “TT” for “that,” most operators are now spelling out the entire word.
Perhaps it’s because more operators are now using keyboards. Whatever the reason, I want to encourage all CW operators to really think about this and use the abbreviations whenever you can. I think it makes operating CW more fun because you can say more in a given amount of time.
I’ve decided that I’m going to set the example and use as many abbreviations as I can. So, in addition to TT, you’ll hear me sending CUZ (instead of BECAUSE), LIL (instead of LITTLE), and WUD (instead of WOULD). If the other operator can’t figure out what I’m sending, he can ask for a repeat. If he can, maybe it will encourage him to start using the abbreviations more, too.
For a list of the commonly used CW abbreviations, go to the CW Geek’s No-Nonsense Guide to Having Fun With CW: Abbreviations.
Edward Vielmetti says
Dan –
There is a list of abbrevs here:
http://users.isp.com/danflan/cwabbrev.html
RickB says
I think your comments on keyboarding are spot on. When I got back into ham radio after 25 yr. absence, I migrated to PSK and found that when operating with push putton macros, you tend to spell it out. Now that I’m migrating to CW, I notice more spelled out words. Could be keyboards or keyer macros. If you’re not DITn & DAHn, what’s a few more characters amongst friends. Try texting and spelling out words and you’ll soon be texting to yourself.