A couple of days ago, on a local 2m net, one of the guys asked how he could make more ARRL Centennial QSO Party points. He said that he was just over 10,000 points at this point, and really wanted to get to 15,000, if he could. I didn’t really have any great suggestions for him, but I did tell him that as an ASM I was worth 35 points, and that I’d be happy to work him.
After the net, he called me and we had a discussion about how we could go about making contact on as many HF bands with as many modes as possible. Since before the net, I had made a contact on 30m CW, I suggested that we try 30m right then and there. At that suggestion, he demurred, saying that he’d never made a CW contact before.
I persisted, though. I said that there were several ways we could do this. One way I suggested was that he program his rig’s keyer to send my callsign and the exchange.
As soon as that thought came out of my mouth, though, I asked if he had any kind of a key there. When he replied that he did indeed have a key, I told him to go get it, and that I would coach him through the contact. He told me to standby while he found the key. I found out later that this was actually the first time he’d ever taken it out of the box.
The next step was to figure out where to plug in the key and how to set up the radio to actually send CW. Fortunately, his TS-990 has a jack labelled PADDLE on the front panel, so that was pretty much a no-brainer.
Figuring out how to set up the radio was more of a challenge. He was able to get the radio to send a carrier when he pressed the foot pedal, but not when he tried the paddle. At that point, I joked that if worse came to worse, he could operate QLF, that is to say he could send by operating the foot pedal with this left foot. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that, though. After goofing around some more with the settings, he got it to work.
Now, we could actually complete the QSO. I called him and then coached him over the 2m repeater on how to send the exchange back to me. “Just send each character as I say it to you over the repeater,” I told him.
dah-di-dah dah-di-di-dit dah-di-di-di-dit dah-dit di-di-dah di-di-di-di-dit dah-dit dah-dit
He was a little shakey, but he made it! So, in addition to adding 35 points to his Centennial QSO Party score, he made his very first CW contact. How about that?
One of the coolest experiences in my life was “reading the mail” on 40m as one of my best friends made his first CW contact with an FB OT in Central Louisiana from Central Florida. My buddy’s CW was shakey, jerky, but he made the exchange and copied the OT’s name, location, and SKCC number.
I have so much respect for you CW guys. I learned the code for my Novice license in 1989. I upgraded to General and then Extra when they went no-code. Someday when I settle down from all of this business travel I want to get into CW, if only to have justification to purchase a beautiful Begali chunk o’ brass.
Thanks for your kind words, but while other CW ops may deserve the praise, I don’t think I do. CW has always been easy for me, and I enjoy it, so it’s not a big effort for me.
Seems that on ‘modern’ rigs, to get the paddle to key the transmitter, you must enable ‘VOX’. Perhaps counter-intuitive, until you figure out that the concept is that the local sidetone is being used to key the transmitter on (don’t know if that is actually the case, but it at least helps to remind me why I have to turn on the VOX to operate CW on my K3).
On the Begali key front, I had the great pleasure of ‘swapping’ extra tickets with an old high-school ham friend of mine during the 2014 Dayton Hamvention(r) — he had an extra AMSAT banquet ticket, and I had an extra FDIM (QRP ARCI folks Four Days in May) banquet ticket. He had never attended a QRP banquet before, and didn’t really know what to expect, but was floored when he won one of the top door prizes — a Begali key, with a special engraved nameplate, and presented personally to my friend by Mr. Begali himself.
Talk about pumped! I think he will be back for the full FDIM treatment next year.
Oh, and by the way, he is a wonderful CW op. Regularly ran 30-35 WPM when we were in high school. I was certainly in awe.
73,
— Dave, N8SBE
Pardon my ignorance – what is an “ASM” and why the 35 points?
ASM = Assistant Section Manager. I am the ASM for Training in the Michigan Section.
During the Centennial Challenge, ARRL members were worth a single point, while ARRL officials were worth more points, depending on their position. President Kay Craigie, N3KN, was worth 200 points, and the other ARRL officials were assigned values between 1 and 200.