I know you all are probably tired of reading about CW here, but hey, I am the CW Geek, after all. Today, I have a couple of stories about taking the CW test.
Last night, I worked Klaus, DM3XI. On his QRZ.Com page, he has this story:
The first time I heard radio amateurs was on grandmothers’ old tube radio in AM on 40 and 20 meters. The opportunity to get in contact across the world with other people regardless of nationality, race, religion or political views inspired me.
One day, during a demonstration by radio amateurs in our school, someone asked me whether I want be interested in taking the examination for an amateur licence. The only problem: this examination took place only one week later and I had to learn telegraphy at 60 letters per minute. During the cw-test I was terrified of an unknown Morse sign which appeared about 10 times. Every times it came, I wrote a horizontal stroke. Wondering about the result since there were only two permitted errors, I checked the sign. It was the separation sign and, without knowing it, I had written the correct symbol…. So I was licensed at the young age of 14.
One of my Elmerees also found a unique way to pass the CW test. This was back when you needed to pass a 5 wpm test to get your Extra Class license.
5 wpm is very slow. Slow enough to write down the dots and dashes. What my friend did was to do exactly that. As the code was sent, he copied down the dots and dashes, and when the code stopped, he went back and decoded it.
This flummoxed the volunteer examiners, and they decided that they would have to consult with the ARRL before issuing the certificate that he had passed the test. The ARRL gave its approval, and my friend was granted his Extra Class license. Unfortunately, shortly after this, he got really busy with family and job, so he never became a very active ham.
Now, it’s your turn. Tell me a story about how you or a friend passed the code test.
ON5ZO says
I was 25 and got bored with my VHF-and-up license after a year. So I was eager to pass the CW test to FINALLY get on HF and play with the big boys. I practiced during three months, every day only ten to fifteen minutes. Not more but dutifully every day to get up to 12 WPM.
There were only two CW tests every year so failing would mean waiting another six months. I had an HF setup standing by but I could only SWL. Which made passing the test even more important. As the day of the test approached I got ready. I didn’t copy any error anymore in the training sessions on the PC (still under DOS!).
The day of the test there were a dozen of older folks (50-60 y/o or older) present and I was the only young guy. I went alone. My co-workers who had taken the VHF test with me the year before had abandoned ham radio. I didn’t know anyone there in the waiting room. I was eavesdropping on their conversation.
‘I’ve been here two times already’.
‘Today is my second try’
‘I come for the third time, it’s almost impossible to pass the test’.
Oh boy. Hardly encouraging. But I told myself this was just like taking the driver’s test: I passed that right away while many had to go two times or more. Or like exams in school: some people found it hard while I had good grades.
Truth be told: eighteen years later I don’t remember much of the actual test except that I didn’t copy much (if any?) errors and that sending straight key style was easy. I looked at both government officials supervising the test and asked if I did OK. They had a chuckle and one replied: ‘more than ok’. They wished me good luck in my future ham radio career.
A few days later my new license got in the mail and I fired away on HF. In SSB. I delayed using CW on the air as 12 WPM is nothing when you want to make telegraphy contacts. And so the hurdle grew bigger and bigger. And SSB was so easy.
To cut a long story short: someone talked me into trying CW on the air. During a contest nonetheless! It was a complete disaster. Me too slow, them too fast. But I wanted to do it so badly. So for a few months I practiced on PED and RUFZ (who remembers?) during lunch breaks at work and the rest is history. Today I operate +90% CW and it is by far my favorite mode. I think without CW I would just quit.
73 ES CW 4 EVER!
Phil K2ASP says
My first test (5 wpm) was at the FCC office in New York in 1952 when I was in HS. I studied for it with an old machine at my HS Radio Club (W2CLE, allegedly the first HS Radio Club in the country). I received the Novice (KN2ASP) and Technician (K2ASP) at that session. I
“upgraded” to General (13 wpm) ten years later after college and grad school. I had a local ham as a study partner and when he passed I was determined to do so myself… and did, a week later. Same office and same examiner that I had ten years before!
After 10 years working in the private sector I became an FCC Field Engineer in San Francisco and in 1974 decided to take the final step for Amateur Extra Class. Because I was a supervisor on staff and usually gave code tests, it had to be administered by another supervisor who had recently transferred into my office. At least it was in private. He
started the old variable-speed Boehme punched-tape machine, and I had no problem copying the simple text (20 wpm) and was almost through when I started missing letters. I asked him what happened. He replied that he was looking over my shoulder to ensure that I copied the required one minute of solid copy, and then slowly increased the speed of the machine and lost me at 26 wpm! I retired after 28 years on the FCC staff and testing during that time was eventually passed on to volunteer examiners
but I have good memories of when we gave them in the offices.
Dan KB6NU says
Great stories, guys? Anyone else have one?
Walter Underwood says
I remember my CW test very well, but it isn’t an entirely pleasant memory. In 1970, I showed up at some government basement in Baton Rouge for the test. I remember it was a Civil Defense shelter and had Teletype machines across one wall. I copied my 5 WPM and passed the Novice test.
I had a working receiver, a BC-224, but I never had the money or expertise to power up and modify the ARC-5 transmitter. After two years, my non-renewable Novice license expired and there was no way I could do the 13 WPM needed for the General. Maybe this was an “incentive” idea, but it was demoralizing.
I studied electrical engineering in college, with a specialization in signals and systems, but not as an amateur radio operator. When I was studying digital signal processing in 1980, the state of the art was far ahead of Morse. We were working with multiple bits per baud, error correction, Viterbi decoders, and firmware demodulators. Amateur radio technology was a stagnant backwater.
In 2009, nearly forty years after being kicked out of amateur radio, I passed the General exam on my first try. A year later, I was licensed as Amateur Extra.
Today, there is exciting work being done in amateur radio, with the JT modes and the digital voice work. I’ve spent some time trying to learn Morse, but it is extremely hard and my heart really isn’t in it.
I volunteer with the city, publish on my blog, and help as an elmer whenever I can. But I don’t have good memories of the exclusionary Morse code requirement.
Dave New, N8SBE says
I passed my Novice 5 WPM code test given by my high school friend’s father. This was in the day when Novice tests were mailed to a higher class (General? I don’t recall) license and they became proxy examiners. I went out to his place in the country, and we did a couple of ‘practice’ code tests, and then he said I had passed. He certainly did a good job of calming my jitters, by passing off the actual test as just another practice session.
I ended up upgrading to Advanced the following spring. This was taking a day off from high school, and traveling with a couple of other guys from the high school radio club (WB4LFU in Murfreesboro, TN) (try sending THAT QTH at 5 WPM) to Nashville, which was a quarterly examination point from the Atlanta field office. I had studied hard to get my code speed up to 13 WPM (that 7-10 WPM bump was really real), and the ARRL General class license manual. The code test was given in a room full of other testees from a paper tape code machine, the sound echoing off the walls. Somehow, I managed to get 1 minute solid copy (just barely, I think). When they handed out the written tests, I was asked if I wanted to try the Advanced test, as well (no extra charge, cool!), so I said yes. A few weeks later, my Advanced license came in the mail, a complete surprise.
I sat on that advanced license for over 35 years, and finally convinced myself that I should get my Extra. I had been on and off the air over that time, and my CW was pretty rusty, but I started studying both the code to get my speed up and also the Extra class license manual. By now, all the tests were given by volunteer examiners, so I went to my local club in Ann Arbor to take the test. I managed once again to just barely pass the 20 WPM test, this time by multiple choice question, and I did well on the written exam, earning my Extra class at long last.
A few days later, the code requirement for all classes was dropped to 5 WPM, and eventually eliminated altogether. I must be one of the last 20 WPM extras. In fact, my original Extra class license grant date was AFTER the change to 5 WPM, so it looked like I was one of the first 5 WPM Extras.
I finally decided to go for a vanity call a couple of years later, which reset my grant date, so at least now it doesn’t look quite so suspicious.
I’ve now been active in a few contests a year, both on SSB and CW. It’s been a lot of fun, and I’ve finally earned my WAS and DXCC awards, and am slowly working on band/mode endorsements.
Howard AE0Z says
November 1999. I had caught the ham radio bug and wrote my own practice test program. I figured I’d better strike while the iron was hot, and pass the CW test at the same time. I got a CW practice program off the internet. I practiced for both every other day or so.
When it came time for the CW test, I was disappointed in how much I was able to copy. There were 10 questions about the QSO I had to answer, and I was able to answer 5 of them from what I’d copied. A little logic, and some informed guessing, supplied the other 5 answers. I think I got 9 right in total.
In the end, I think I would have been better off not learning the code that way, because, as you noted, 5 wpm means you hear a dit and then a dah, and then you think “that’s an A!”. It is impossible to get to a speed for comfortable conversation that way. I started practicing again in May, hoping to be able to use it during Field Day. I was able to decode a little bit, but I was mainly dependent on the auto-decode feature in my radio. I haven’t practiced since Field Day, and I need to get back to it.
Shannon Boal says
I tried that copying thing, and was flunked. I was told that the point of the test was to demonstrate proficiency at five WPM, which copying dots and dashes did not demonstrate.