Gilmore Radio Club – CW Corner News No 7, by David M0WDD
Welcome to CW Corner News No 007 from the friendly Gilmore Radio Club. In this issue – NWM at NARSA rally – latest North West Morse news – latest about the North West Morse CW nets – a look at FISTS – the new NWM WAKE UP CW ON 2M – more CW jokes – read on to find out more.
In this CW Corner News No 7:
- NARSA rally on 23rd April – visitors to NWM
- What’s been happening with recent NWM CW nets
- Our new WAKE UP CW ON 2M CW Activity Hour
- A look at the excellent FISTS CW Club
- Some more CW jokes to make you smile
- And Finally ….
1. NARSA rally on 23rd April – visitors to NWM
North West Morse, NWM, were delighted to be part of the GRC exhibition stand at the NARSA rally in Blackpool back in April, and special thanks go to Heather M6HNS for organising the excellent NWM exhibits and leaflets on display. We had some interesting visitors.
NWM was pleased to meet visitor Alex G7KSE, our most northerly NWM CW net contact, based in St Bees in Cumbria. Alex chatted with us about weak signal propagation, SOTA activations and the challenges of outdoor CW. Perhaps there is an idea there for a future NWM SOTA activity?
I was then pleased to meet Lynda G6QA from Bury Radio Society, who has taught Morse code over many years. Linda explained how she currently teaches Morse using 2m FM, hosting weekly evening sessions with her students. Hearing about CW being taught in this way was encouraging. Her students call themselves her “victims”. It’s good to see they have a good sense of humour – essential in learning cw! Is there scope for NWM to support learning CW this way or run something similar, for example using Zoom?
We also spoke to other visitors included CW operators from further afield, for example from Edinburgh and Barrow in Furness. Some admitted to reading the GRC gazette and CW Corner. That was great news.
Later we met RSGB Regional rep, Martyn Bell M0TEB, and also the NARSA Exhibition Manager and former RSGB President Dave Wilson M0OBW. Both were very encouraging about our NWM CW activities and gave us very helpful tips and suggestions.
So overall, we really enjoyed meeting visitors to the GRC stand – a very successful day.
Now we’ll move on to tell you what has been happening with our busy NWM HF nets – where you can always find good CW practice and interesting chats.
2. What’s been happening with recent NWM CW Nets…?
NWM HF Nets
NWM has always been running cw nets on the HF bands, and early questions have always been about which frequency or frequencies are best for local cw net communications? Looking around, many UK clubs opt for 80m and sometimes 40m as a catch all for local and any visitors from further afield, depending on time of year and time of day. 80m is also very popular for uk wide cw training nets.
Under Chris’ M0KJC leadership, NWM has experimented with different HF net frequencies each week, and this has evolved into Sunday evening nets, using a changing weekly sequence of 80m, 10m, and 6m. The idea was to see how propagation affected net participation with a view to finding the “best” frequency for local CW nets.
This was not how it turned out…..
The NWM CW nets very quickly attracted a core group of GRC CW enthusiasts and in the early days propagation conditions on a particular net frequency did determine who took part. So early NWM net communications, particularly on 80m, were seriously affected by QSB and background noise levels, with variations through the seasons and time of day, as well as interference, and skip distance issues. As well as this, participants have different rigs and antenna arrangements. So finding the “best” frequency did not turn out as expected.
What happened was that as the HF CW nets progressed through the weeks, participants changed and improved their stations. Participants deployed higher and/or more efficient antennas, acquired more rigs, and improved their skills decoding CW under difficult conditions.
So more use of rf gain/audio gain combinations, CW filters, and noise reduction features played an important part in how the NWM nets developed. Eventually all our core callers achieved good CW communications capabilities on every HF frequency our NWM nets used. That was a surprise and great to see.
So who have been the NWM net regular contributors?
Regular contributors joining Chris M0KJC and David M0WDD have been Jamie M1JSC, Graham M0IYP and more recently, Adrian G0EGH.
Each have made their mark in different ways. Jamie M1JSC, as well as promoting and running CW at QRP levels, chaired our first every NWM Straight Key net recently– definitely a future fixture when the time is right. Graham M0IYP always brings a good chat to the nets even when others are quieter, so always keeping the flow going. New club member Adrian G0EGH brings welcome new ideas, for example in his information about use of Ham Clock with a raspberry pi. So thank you to everyone. So overall, the net participants have made the nets all very enjoyable.
There is now one other NWM CW net to mention – WAKE UP CW ON 2M!
3. NWM WAKE UP CW ON 2M Activity Hour, every Sunday 4pm
CW activity in 2m seems quiet these days and CW nets seem rare. Well mostly. Can we wake up CW on 2m?
There is however at least one exception. There is an excellent local 2m CW net on 4 evenings a week, run by Adrian G0EHG and Trystan G0KAY on 144.065 Mhz. This net runs at 7pm, Mon-Thur and participants take turns to each send 3 famous names, dates of birth, and a quote. It’s all done for CW practice, so if you’re interested, why not have a listen, and if interested you can contact Adrian. Trystan adds that you can also listen to this net on your local web sdr.
Otherwise, there seem to be a huge absence of CW on 2m. So does cw have a future on 2m? What are the pros and cons of using CW on 2m?
On the plus side, local 2m propagation is excellent with generally stable conditions. 2m FM seems well used, and you can hear many regular 2m FM club nets and a reasonable number of FM QSOs. There is also some CW activity but plenty of underused 2m frequencies.
On the minus side, 2m propagation only covers a limited area. However, this still can cover most of Greater Manchester and a little further afield, with a significant number of amateurs within this range. It would interesting to find out how many.
Further on the minus side, many modern multi band rigs do not have 2m CW capabilities, so equipment availability can be an issue. So to use CW on 2m ops may need to use older rigs or more specialise CW rigs. However the number of older rigs with CW capabilities is still substantial in Greater Manchester, but again It would interesting to find out how many.
So NWM decided to shake up CW on 2m and see what would happen. Hence the new NWM weekly “WAKE UP CW ON 2M” Activity Hour every Sunday afternoon. If you’re interested in this, please consider calling in.
This 2m Activity Hour currently takes place every Sunday afternoon, 4pm to 5pm on two frequencies; 144.064 MHz (main) and 144.060 MHz (second).
The aim is to attract two different types of CW operators – less experienced operators – and more experienced operators.
Overall, we want to encourage as many callers as possible, so QSOs need to be short within the hour. However, recognising that some ops make a great effort to call into the Activity Hour, for example from a portable location, and also that other ops may welcome longer QSOs too, we want to make provision for longer QSOs without putting off less experienced ops from calling in.
So the main frequency is for the less experienced operators looking for good basic QSO practice, either with a short rubber stamp QSO or a short rag chew QSOs. The second frequency is for the more experienced operators looking for further practice and longer QSOs. Operators are also welcome to move from one frequency to the other.
Since the weekly WAKE UP CW 2M Activity Hour started in April 2023, a small core of 5-6 regular callers has built up each week, as well as occasional additional callers, and sometimes from a little out of the area. Callers also come from more than one local club, and NWM welcomes ops who may be in any club or not in a club, as all are welcome.
NWM is considering a new WAKE UP CW ON 70CM activity in the future. If you are interested in contributing to such an activity, please contact David M0WDD.
Moving on, we have looked at different CW organisations in recent CW Corner articles, including CWops and Long Island CW Club (LICW). Now here is some information on an excellent organisation closer to home – the FISTS CW Club.
4. A look at the excellent FISTS CW Club
The word “FISTS” came to be used during World War 2 to describe how morse code telegraphy operators could recognise who was sending morse code by the way the morse timings varied during transmissions – so the term FIST became known to describe a particular CW operator’s sending style. Experienced operators could tell who was sending by their cw “fist”.
Today FISTS is used in the name for the FISTS CW Club (International Morse Preservation Society) which supports the three aims of use, preservation and education of Morse code.
Founded in 1987, the FISTS CW Club has evolved and spread internationally, with these additional “Chapters” – The North American Chapter (FISTS Americas), the FISTS Down Under Chapter, and the East Asia Chapter all formed to provide similar services to local members in these areas.
The club is exclusively for CW operators, and welcomes use of CW at any speed, using any type of key. They are passionate about CW and the club offers a range of supportive activities for members, such as a monthly newsletter, range of on air activities, cw resources, and suggested FISTS frequencies to use on the bands.
On the suggested FISTS frequencies, members can call CQ FISTS for contacts with other members and non-members.
The FISTS focus to achieve their three main aims mentioned above, is on support, fellowship, guidance, and lots of on air activities, with help and encouragement where needed.
5. Can Morse code make you laugh even more? Try this extra jokes
Enjoying CW is all about and having fun communicating with CW and having a laugh is part of that. So here are three more CW jokes to make you smile:
What’s the longest morse code message? The 100 yard dash.
Got sent an apologies made up of dots and dashes. I think it was in remorse code.
When I was at the zoo, I saw something like a frog tapping things out on a piece of wood. Turned out it was a morse toad.
Have you any good Morse Code jokes to share with us? Let us know and we’ll add them next time.
6. And Finally
Have you any suggestions, comments or requests for future articles? Please let us know.
Until next time, best wishes from David M0WDD, North West Morse, Gilmour Radio Club, June 2023