Working CW for people that don’t do CW

This weekend saw a cacophony of CW over the bands, as part of the ARRL DX contest. The idea is to work as many USA stations as you can. They send 5NN and their state, and you send 5NN and your power.

I thought the contest would be ideal to try out the radios in built CW keyer, so I programed it up ready to have a go. As some will know I don’t read CW, but as much is sent via machines / computers these days it will mostly decode in DM780 or you chosen data program.

16610612961_3a92a398a2_z

One programed it was just a case of keep track of what I had worked to avoid dupes, and see what I could add to the log. I used 28, 21 and 7 Mhz and over the course of a few hrs worked 100 stations.

Its always interesting to see the propagation change over the course of the day.

usa cw map

Not too bad for a bit of wire and a couple of hundred watts….

73 Dave M0TAZ

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

6 + 2 =

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.