From: oo7@ut-emx.uucp (Derek Wills)
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.misc
Subject: CW stinks
Keywords: or not
Date: 13 Nov 92 06:06:56 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas

jcraig@kean.ucs.mun.ca (VO1NA) asks:

            >>What percentage of extras never use CW? 

I know of one, and I know of perhaps 100 who use it as their main mode.  But
I'm not sure that this proves anything.   While many of the posters here are
complaining about how tough and irrelevant N wpm CW is, there are dozens of
posters, probably all Extra class, over on the contest list discussing the
fun they had in last weekend's CW Sweepstakes.   None of them complain about
how hard it is to copy 30+ wpm CW, they take CW for granted.  They are not
here contributing to the statistics (and I'm not either, really...).

If you ever want to communicate in poor conditions, on a crowded band, on a
fading path or with a mediocre antenna and low power, it is a definite
advantage to know CW.   If you are only interested in talking to loud people
in perfect conditions with no interference, then you may as well stick to the 
telephone.   If you don't have a telephone, and only want to talk to loud 
local people on VHF, there is now a no-code license that will let you do that.

I consider it a favor that I had to learn CW in order to get a license.  Had 
I not known the basics, I might never have tried using it and found out how 
powerful it is in many situations.  I don't think anyone knows for sure that 
they will never use it, any more than they can say that they will never use 
'phone.  Using other modes like satellites and RTTY is not in the same class - 
anyone can hook up a terminal and send and receive RTTY without needing any 
communications skills.   Five words per minute CW is one letter every 2.5 
seconds, it is not "high speed morse", it is slower than real QSOs go on the 
air, and it is only intended to let you learn what the letters sound like so 
that you can build on it should you be open-minded enough to try using it some 
day.

If you give it an honest try once you have your license, and decide for some
reason that you don't like it, fine.  The same goes for those who find that
they don't like using SSB after being forced to learn the phonetic alphabet,
don't like HF operating after having to learn all that propagation stuff for 
the tests, or don't want anything to do with the insides of radios after being
forced to remember Ohm's law and how to calculate a time constant.  Throw away 
your key or your mike if you want to.  But a basic knowledge of propagation, 
phonetics, band limits, CW and electronics are all useful to have as you enter 
the hobby.  

Bitching about learning CW because you *know* you are never going to use it
is like complaining about the taste of some ice cream flavor that you *know*
you will just hate.  In the ice cream parlors, the sales people give you a
little spoonful to taste, and you may find that you like the flavor after all.
That's all 5 wpm morse code is, a little taste.  

I don't really know why I am posting this, except perhaps to encourage the
newcomers and potential hams who have to read all these complaints about how
useless morse code is.    To those, I would say - stop reading all these
complaining posts, invest the time in learning a minimal amount of CW, get
on the air and give it, and the other modes, a fair trial.  Then decide if
you are going to stick to one mode and abandon all the others, or be like
many hams and use a bit of everything, depending on what your interests turn
out to be later.  The arguments that CW are outdated are only the arguments 
for amateur radio itself being outdated.  If you want to communicate with
people at maximum efficiency, you don't use CW or phone or any of the modes
we use every day, you get on the telephone using a satellite link, or get
on a 'plane and go and talk to the person face to face.  It's a hobby, it's
a great one, and minimal exposure to its main features before you are let
loose on the air is to everyone's advantage.  


Derek Wills (AA5BT, G3NMX)
Department of Astronomy, University of Texas, 
Austin TX 78712.  (512-471-1392)
oo7@astro.as.utexas.edu 
oo7@emx.utexas.edu
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