My 1st CW Contact

Sent: Friday, July 18, 2003
Subject: Join FISTS

Work a CW contact every day.. Change the guard at the ARRL. Get into the CW REVOLUTION.. Save the Hobby.. I got into Ham radio to begin with because of CB and CW.. To me, it is still just CB or CW.. A lot of other people called "Brass Pounders" and many other names that I will not mention, see it just like I do.. I passed 20 WPM about 16 years ago and got my Extra before the days of no-code Techs, Lieutenant Generals and Extra Lights.. I did that so that I would have more space to work CW.

I never went for awards but the wall of my shack is covered with QSL cards and if I ever made a SSB contact, I never bothered to display it.. Where is the glory in that and what is the point.?. Anyone can key a mic.!!.. As a CBer, I never had a good station and joined W5M Side Banders to experiment with DX and talk to some people who knew about radio.. They were a good bunch of folks and I made a lot of local CB friends some of which I still have today and yes, a lot of them are on 2 meters. I worked very little DX on CB and it was always "Hey, break, break, shake, shake, I heard you way up here in the Buck Eye State and then, somebody dropped the mall on you"..

Some CBers had the ridiculous idea that if they could get crystals cut for the "no-man's land" between CB and 10 meters and run a gigawatt of power, that they could be like Hams on a "clear noise free channel" and talk any where they wanted to.. A lot of money was made on their radio ignorance and fear of CW tests because such radios and amps were made available and sold for more than enough to buy a top notch HF rig....

As a Technician, I could use voice on 10 meters and it was great.. My old CB ground plane worked just fine up there and I caught 10 meter skip both long and short from some of the finest people in the World who encouraged me in every way.... I had found a fun hobby and made a lot of new friends.. However, CW, made me very nervous and I had failed the test twice before I finally squeaked by and passed.. I remember sweat dripping from both elbows and my hands shaking during my first "on the air CW QSO"..

One night I drifted off frequency into the Extra Class Voice band and an Extra class operator came back on the key very, very QRS just to help me out and be nice.. I sent "QTH" and a question mark and he answered with CW.. He was sending very slowly for me but I still did not copy and asked him to repeat.. That he did and still I missed it and then again and again.. The filter on my old rig had been modified for CB and was very wide.. That is the reason that I heard him perfectly well when he keyed his mic and said "I'm in Texas damn it, that's Dah space Dah Ditty Dah".. I don't know if that was a SSB contact or a CW contact but Texas is not DX..

On 2 meters and 10 meters, all the local guys with the most sense were talking about the long haul bands really working well that Summer but still they did not work for me.. Back then as a Technician, you had a good slice of 15 meters to work DX CW on and I tried it.. Then one Summer night, I heard a ZL2MM in my speaker and my first thought was "don't get your hopes up, he can't hear your10 watts of power in New Zealand and it's probably just some local Ham buddy playing a trick ".. I was shaking like a leaf but I did manage to send my call letters.. He came right back but I had little idea of what he said and I still thought that it was all a joke.. Then about a week later, I got the QSL card in the mail from Harry Adcock in New Zealand.. The rest is history..

I have worked a lot of CW DX and can prove it. I have a QSL card of a picture taken onboard the USS Hornet just before the famous raid on Japan.. On the back side is a note from the radio op who took the picture telling me what a good CW op that I was and how glad he was to see younger people use the mode.. I also have a nice card from a Tokyo Ham Club that was open only to those who were radio ops in WWII on the side of Japan.. I see hands across the water, side by side on my wall.. The story of my Keyer and I goes on and on for longer than you would care to read about and no one other than the "Grim Reaper' can take away the good times and happy memories spent alone but with the World at my finger tips.... It has been great and it is not for myself that I am concerned but for those who come after us and buy into the dollar driven idiot philosophy that CW is out of date and no longer useful...

Another wrong idea is the "cop out notion" that all of us just want all of the new comers to have to suffer like we did.. Well, to begin with, work does not always equal pain.. I did not SUFFER.. I am just a very shy person and Speech 101 did not help me one bit.. The first time that I ever faced a crowd with a guitar on my knee, cold sober, I packed up and left.. My wife could play and sing for the Queen of England and never break a sweat.. However, anyone who has ever done it will tell you that there is no pleasure like playing in a Country, Rock, Gospel or Blues Band.. Even the children know that and some people play music well into their 80s but it takes some work and getting used to just like anything else in life worth anything.. You never get something for nothing but calling it Suffering when it is a labor of love is wrong..

As a teen-ager, I would see a young man with a nice older model car and think.."Wow, he has good taste and is one sharp mechanic"... These days, kids say 'Wow, his Dad sure has a lot of money to pay somebody to fix up that old wreck, looks like he would buy him a new one"..

Something very important is often lost to this generation that not only afffects children of the very wealthy but also those who are products of our Welfare State.. They want something for nothing and they whine until they think that they have it.. However, respect is something that you work for all by yourself.. You can own the symbols of it but not the qualiity.. This becomes obvious rather quickly and in this life, it seems that you don't get away with much of anything for very long... After your self respect is gone, something always comes back to get what's left of you.. Ronny