My quest to learn CW (15)

 15 months of learning CW now and still not able to make a real CW QSO (chat) with someone. At least, I could make a QSO with kind of a standard template or so. But if the station would ask me something I would not understand, which worries me the most.

My monthly overview again. You see, I try to practice every day. Sometimes I have no access to a computer, in that case I use the morsemania app on my iphone.

Not the most important but I try to do 2 lessons each day to improve my speed. The rest of the time is spend on plain text, word or callsign training. I also train numbers with a speed of 30/14 and have most of the time 100% score. However the combination letters/numbers like in a callsign is far more difficult.

If time allows I'm listening to CW on the radio and do some training with the Begali paddle. This evening I listened to 2 stations on 60m. IK2JET and HA2PP. I spotted them on the cluster and got some reaction from them both which was nice. However I didn't dare to try and make a QSO. I was listening to HA2PP when he made a QSO and was not able to figure out what he was actually keying. It was way too fast for me and only a few decodes could be made. That was a little frustrating and discouraging. But I will persevere learning the code. I always estimated that it would take at least 3 years to master it and make a normal QSO with CW. And if I look back and see how far I came already I think it is still possible.

I started a user group on LCWO, my main CW learning and training platform.

I'm the only member and founder right now. If you like to join me that would be nice...

And at the end of this blogpost I want to share this:

PACC 2025 CW pile up recording

 

Bas Lev · PACC 2025 CW pile up

Listen to the pile-up I had on 20m. It actually was like this all the time on any band. Imagine that for a beginner CW operator this is all a bit overwhelming. I could not do CW for longer as about 30-45 minutes, it was just too much. When I listen to it I wish it could be more smooth, I try to listen carefully but it is hard to pull a call out of the pile. Please comment if you feel I could do better. I want to learn from my mistakes.

This is also for archive purposes. I want to compare with the next PACC. Will there be a lot of progress in one year of training?

I did some CW practise as well last weekend. Partaking in the ARRL CW international contest working USA/Canada. It went very well although I only did S&P. Worked 50 in one hour on Saturday afternoon and worked another 50 early Sunday morning also in one hour. Wish I had some more time but since it was my XYL her birthday we had visitors till late in the evening. And although radio is my passion my family will always be on first place.

PACC 2025 contest review

Contest: Dutch PACC 2025

Section: SO AB QRP mixed

TRX: IC-7300 @5% (5W)

Antenna 10m: 4 element LFA @14mh

Antenna 80-15m: Doublet inverted-V @12mh

Antenna 160m: Inverted-L with CG3000 tuner

This was my first PACC in which I didn't use any computer decoder for CW. I just tried headcopy. And it went well I think. I hope the final result will tell if I made less errors compared to last years. My goal was to beat last years score. And it certainly did happen. With 106 QSOs more and 16 multipliers more. I think there is still room for improvement, CW should be my first priority in this contest. It costs time to make SSB contacts, CW is so much faster if you are QRP.

Red dots = CW, green dots = SSB

Note that the green dot near Nigeria is wrong because of a wrong locator for a German station. I cannot change that. I was surprised my operating time was less compared to last year. ODX was with a Chinese station but I doubt he was in the contest? For QRP operation it is most time an European contest and less DX as you can see in the picture. Although I worked some Canada on 10m both CW as SSB I didn't hear VE9KK this time unfortunately. However again K1ZZ worked me on 5 bands CW again, something that's almost unbelievable. I think he has the best ears of the world. 

I worked 37 DXCC in last years contest. This year I worked 42, a 5 DXCC improvement. And now....why improvement for next year is possible:

You see that a lot of QSOs were made in the last 3 hours. That was the point were I got more self confidence and more experience in making it in CW pile-ups. I'm shure if I'm able to improve my CW skills I will make even more contacts in this contest. 

It was certainly fun this year. And I felt less stressful about CW. Propagation was actually great on 40m both CW and SSB. I don't have good antennas for 20m and 15m but with CW it seems that it doesn't matter that much. I got a good antenna for 10m but propagation has been better lately.

Previous blogger PA0K Paul made a video when he heard me on 40m SSB. I was surprised by my own signal especially at the second part of the video. Thanks very much Paul.

It looks like Paul was using a webSDR. Don't know which one? But it is nice to hear my QRP signal came trough with punchy audio.

I also made myself a recording from my CW efforts. I do not yet publish it before I listened to it. I might use it for another post.

If you participated in the PACC, I hope you had some fun! If you contacted me, thanks very much. Hopefully till next year. 73 . .

PACC 2025 announcement

 

Tnx PB7Z for the pic. CQWW RTTY? Let it go.... RTTY is so old fashion. Join us for the PACC... ;-)

Personally I will be QRV in the QRP section which is always a mixed section. I will do SSB and CW. Please QRS for me on CW as I'm a CW beginner. If your call is not too long I will probably get it the first time. Otherwise I will try the second time.

Just as reminder for myself: Goal is to beat last years score and QSOs. https://pe4bas.blogspot.com/2024/02/pacc-contest-2024-review.html

Need more as 425 Qs and 143 mults, Total 2024 score was 60775.

WSPR 12m 2nd Feb. 2025

 1W in the gainmaster 1/2 wave vertical at 16m above the ground

12m has significant less users compared to 10m I think.

On RX I received EP4HR from Iran. The station that looks like it is in the pacific probably has his locator wrong. It think it is also a station from Iran.

I love WSPR Watch app on my Iphone. It gives some more interesting info. And the map looks so much better but my iphone is just too small to make a screenshot.

Interesting that 5000km is the best distance for me on 12m. Signal reports are sometimes very strong. Like +6dB in the US. 

WSPR 10m 1st of Feb. 2025

Transmitting 1W WSPR-2 in a 1/2 wave gainmaster at a height of 16m above the ground.

First new one on WSPR in 2025. ZD7BG from st. Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.

Above my RX efforts.