I'll chime in here to agree with Kim. CW is fun. CW is a skill, and it's
fun to display that skill. And, over all, Kim is right: CW is almost
invariably polite. I've seen some of the Olde Fahrts who don't limit
themselves to phone become civil and engaging when they migrated down to
the CW portion of the bands.

I learned CW in another antiquated way, as mentioned by Dave, NIRZ, in the
section referenced below. I learned it at 5 WPM and then had to try to
advance. Friends don't let friends learn code that way. (My musical
background didn't help there; I just suffered through it.). I later taught
CW to folks in several clubs in the Houston, TX, area with a decent success
rate. I also was a Field Day regular with a couple of clubs, taking the
late-night CW shift, and adding a few points here and there, usually
between 25-35 WPM. Alas, it's been a few years and I need to get my
proficiency back.

The Koch method is one of several, and in my estimate one of really only
two good ones. If you're going to standardize, it's a great way to go.

So: Do we need to start a CW class up? Kim?

73,
gerry n5jxs


On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 2:44 PM, kim.elmore <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>  Connor tells me that there are a few of you interested in learning and
> using CW. Being a die-hard fan of CW (also known as a "didiot" or "blip
> jerk"), I'm obviously supportive. There is a romance to radio and CW is, at
> least for me, a big part of that. There's nothing quite like a snowy
> winter's evening aglow by the radio's dial lights in a warm room perfumed
> with the sound of CW. It's the stuff that frames disasters like the Titanic
> (the first use of SOS), places WWII military communications in context,
> defines merchant marine drama, and it's what gave us weather information
> from all the ships at sea, and kept passengers on ocean liners in touch
> with business, friends and family during their voyage. CW has a significant
> place in history. See http://www.radiomarine.org/ for some historical
> background.
>
> Even today, CW is a remarkably simple means of digital communications
> because the UART or CODEC that facilitates encoding and decoding of the
> digital information is in the wetware between our ears. It may not be as
> robust as modern digital communications but it's lots faster than SMS
> texting (see http://www.ku3o.net/morse/ for two different video flavors
> of a famous competition on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno"). If nothing
> else, you'll find this amusing.
>
> CW has another charming aspect in that it is difficult to be rude using
> CW. You'll hear terrible, even obscene stuff on 75 m at night as Olde
> Fahrts discuss their prostate issues, hemorrhoids, and gas problems
> seasoned with some truly hateful comments. I can pretty much guarantee that
> all these guys passed the 20 WPM CW requirement. So, there's dispositive
> evidence that CW was not (and so is not) in any way a "filter" that
> prevents riffraff from obtaining licenses. But you won't hear stuff like
> that on CW because it takes far too much effort. You'll find CW ops to be
> cordial, polite and well-disciplined far more often than not. The same goes
> for RTTY and other digital ops as well. Now, don't get me wrong -- the vast
> majority of hams, whether they operate phone, CW or any of the other
> digital modes, are fine, polite, cordial and considerate. But you will find
> the small minority that isn't relegates itself almost exclusively to phone.
> Since it's easy to be a jerk on 'phone, that's where the jerks go.
>
> I've attached a PDF that goes into some detail about CW. "The Art and
> Skill of Radio Telegraphy" is about as comprehensive as you are likely to
> find and I've attached it to this message. The link
> http://http://www.g4fon.net/ has a menu on the left side of the screen
> with an entry called "Koch CW Trainer Version 9." This is a program that
> facilitates the "Koch method" for learning CW. The Koch method originated
> in Germany just prior to WWII and was devised by the German psychologist
> Ludwig Koch around 1935 or so, when the German military needed to turn
> out radio operators proficient in CW as quickly as possible. As an aside,
> ham radio was very limited in Germany prior to WWII. At the same time, the
> U.S. got most of its initial radio operators from the pool of available ham
> radio operators and, yes, hams were targeted for drafts into service along
> with a lot of ham equipment, with compensation of course.
>
> The Koch method is one of the most efficient methods for learning CW and I
> highly recommend it. No, I didn't learn Morse code this way -- learned it
> the* wrong* way by looking at dots and dashes on a page and then
> translating those visual symbols to sounds. Because I had a musical
> background, I got past the translation stage rather quickly, but it would
> have gone a lot faster if there had been a way to implement Koch's method
> back in 1970.
>
> 73,
>
> Kim N5OP
> --
>
> Kim Elmore, Ph.D. (CCM, PP SEL/MEL/Glider, N5OP, 2nd Class Radiotelegraph,
> GROL)
>
> *"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in
> practice, there is." – Attributed to many people; it’s so true that it
> doesn’t matter who said it.*
>



-- 
Gerry Creager
NSSL/CIMMS
405.325.6731
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“Big whirls have little whirls,
That feed on their velocity;
And little whirls have lesser whirls,
And so on to viscosity.”
Lewis Fry Richardson (1881-1953)