Last night I worked W9FAM. During the first exchange, he must have looked me up on QRZ.Com because he noted that one of my goals was to reach 30 wpm. He told me he could copy at up to 60 wpm, given that conditions were right.
After looking up that bit of information about me, he must have decided to have some fun because he cranked it up on his end, first to 40 wpm and then 45 wpm. Amazingly, I was able to copy solidly at 40 wpm and got most everything at 45 wpm. And what I missed I was able to fill in.
Of course, conditions were optimal. W9FAM had a very strong signal here, as well as an exceptionally good fist. He also was spacing the words a little further apart than you’d normally do.
Even so, maybe I’m faster than I thought. I’m going to have to change my QRZ.Com bio.
This may sound like an odd question, but I have always wondered how one knows how many words per minute they are receiving without either automation to keep it continuous or doing some other odd calculation. Do you just ‘get a feel’ for 25/30/35 wpm?
Like I said, goofy question, but I was wondering. Congratulations on being faster than you thought.
Sincerely,
Ronny, KC5EES
Austin, Tx
This is actually a good question.
There are a bunch of ways to know how fast you’re receiving:
1. I set my keyer for a particular speed and then have a QSO and guesstimate if the other station was sending faster or slower.
2. Listen to ARRL code practice. They’ll tell you exactly how fast they’re sending.
3. Use a code practice progam like the G4FON CW Trainer (www.g4fon.co.uk) and set the speed appropriately
4. Go to the AA9PW website (www.aa9pw.com) and have it generate a practice test or practice session at a particular speed.
Wow, Dan – that’s great! I think if I tried to copy 40 WPM, my head would explode! I have enough of a time keeping up with 30 WPM (on a very good day!). And thanks for the QSO last night. I always enjoy hooking up with you – just wish conditions would have been better. 73 de Larry W2LJ
Hi, Larry–
It was good running into you last night. I was just about ready to pull the plug on the rig when I heard you call CQ.
I was kind of surprised myself when I got that on-the-air code proficiency test. If you ever get a chance to work W9FAM do so. He’s a real gentleman.
re: cw spacing
Hi Dan
In regards to your comments on spacing. Spacing is everything. Many times you hear stations running a slow to moderate speed with shall we say ‘poor’ spacing and they are almost undecipherable. Then you might come across another station sending twice as fast who is perfectly copyable. Many who are attempting to up their speed, crank up the speed control and blast away with apparently no ‘feel’ for proper spacing what so ever and figure that in itself will take their speed higher. If the guy at the other end can’t make out what is being sent, it makes no difference if the speed is 5wpm or 50wpm. Unintelligible is unintelligible at any speed. There is no cheat sheet for increasing ones speed. It takes practice, repetition and hopefully many fun and enjoyable qso’s along the path. It will come eventually but does take time.
Some of the best cw on the bands is sent with what I like to refer too as slightly ‘exaggerated spacing’. You know it when you hear it and there is nothing sweeter to the ear, even machine sent code is not quite as easy to copy.
Thats my $0.02 worth.
de W8VNZ……..da-di-dah
I agree 100% and try to send that way myself. That little extra bit of spacing just seems to make the code much more readable, and allows the operator to receive faster. Programs that send code should, by default, set up the spacing that way.
Dan