CW still reigns supreme…

Amateur radio is divided into two very distinct groups, those that love to work CW and those that cannot do CW, but secretly wish they had the skill (most often won’t admit to that fact).

The effectiveness of CW cannot be questioned. If I look at my own log and look at the amount of rare stations I have in my log and I know for a fact that many or most of them would not be there had it not been for the effectiveness of CW. I do not have big towers or large gain antennas. The only way I can make up this gain deficit is by using CW or digital modes. I do use digital, but it does not give me the same pleasure or sense of accomplishment as working CW. The time taken to complete a QSO with digital is also way to long for most of the activities that interest me.

Fortunately it seems to me that CW is still used by most European and Asian stations. If I look at the 6m TEP activity I think I can safely say that the majority of activity is on CW. The local not-yet-competent CW operators must be chomping at the bit?

Now, if only I could get my own skills polished to match that of the other operators. I still find it quite challenging to be at the wrong end of a pile-up. Hugely satisfying, but daunting all the same….

During the 6m TEP opening yesterday I worked 101 stations (mostly on CW), working only 1 new DXCC (HB9) in the process.

73, Pierre ZS6A

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ZS6A 6m TEP 29 Sep 2012