Today I got a comment on yesterday’s entry. It was made by my fellow countryman Frank ON7RU. Here’s what he writes:
Congrats with your great blog, I’m a daily visitor and I like your style and ideas.
Just wanted to comment on your, well it’s hard to translate in English but I call it a pointing finger (belerend vingertje) to non CW guys. It’s recurrent in all your topics and I wonder why.
What do you think of this statement? Only guys who activate rare DX & IOTA are real hams?
Of course this isn’t right, we have to be flexible, understandable, respectful …
Remind one thing, every radio has a big knob, if you don’t like what you hear, use that big knob.
He’s right. Point taken. But I can’t help it. Or maybe I don’t want to help it? I catch myself that it always comes down to me jumping up the barricades for CW. Even if I don’t intend to. I feel the need to convince people to try CW. Maybe it’s a subconscious survival reflex? Trying to keep some CW ops preserved for the day they’ll label me an old timer?
Isn’t it the most beautiful mode there is? CW goes back to the roots of our hobby. It’s an art, a skill. You have to learn it. You have to practice to become better. You have to use it to keep the skills. The best DX comes in CW. The weakest signals can be copied. Every… – ok, I quit. I do SSB. I do RTTY. I could have said that RTTY is too hard to learn. Or that SSB is obsolete with new strong digital modes to communicate. I tried it to see what it is and how it works. There is so much to do in our hobby. HF, Low bands, VHF, microwave, EME. I stick to HF because right now it pleases me. A lot. Same with CW. So what I’m trying to say is: try CW and see if you like it.
OK – to quote myself: "To me CW is the only real HAM mode". By that I mean that I personally think that ham radio IS CW. Something else doesn’t please me that much and I get bored pretty soon. But to each his own. I’m not putting someone else down. Not deliberately, not intentionally. PA3GIO travels the world with a microphone and no key. I work him to support him. But I can. G3TXF and G3SXW go to places only armed with a key and no microphone. The reverse isn’t true.
Frank goes on:
If you have 10 minutes listen to Riley Hollingsworth (K4ZDH) 2007 speach @ dayton. It’s great, funny and contains lots of interesting stuff. To save your valuable time the interesting part is from 12m00s –> 31m00s
http://www.archive.org/download/GeorgeBowen_W2XBSThisWeekinAmateurRadio_738_0/twiar738.mp3
or read the article here: http://www.eham.net/articles/16744
I’ve read the article when it was published half a year ago. And that man has got a point too. His bottom line is:
"We all need to try NEW things and always work towards keeping Amateur radio dynamic. Know the issues: participate in it. But most of all ENJOY it!!!
Enjoying is what I will, I hope we’ll work (again) soon…
One reply on “The man has got a point…”
[…] In the past I did many SB efforts in the SSB parts of the major contests. I started doing all band operations in WW SSB to make the most of the WRTC qualification process. I hate to bring that up again but that’s the way it is. We all know how that ended. Turns out that in the end my submitted scores were all for CW contests. CW is the only real mode (especially for smaller stations)! I might get flamed again just like six years ago. […]