Another week of amateur radio has expired. Expired Ham, get it? 🙂
Welcome to another issue of Expired Ham, a weekly newsletter where I discuss the ways I participated in the amateur radio hobby this week.
Thanks for coming back. Good to see you again.
CWops CW Academy Intermediate is going full steam ahead. The curriculum in this course is administered quite different than the Fundamental course I took a few months ago. We are hitting head copy practice really hard which is helping me push myself further into copying better, faster, and for longer periods of time successfully. We are also working toward instance word recognition by burning the sounds of prefixes and suffixes into our brains so they lessen the brain power needed to copy whole words. If your brain instantly recognizes the prefix “re” and the suffix “ld” then “rebuild” becomes easier to copy at higher speeds.
There has been lots of head copy practice on the air this week and especially this weekend. I hunted a few POTA stations and listened in on the North American CW Sprint and SKCC Weekend Sprintathon, both of which happened this weekend. It was especially fun to listen to ops participating in the SKCC Sprintathon since I’m not super accustomed to hearing code sent on a straight key or bug. The code speeds are slower on both than with a paddle and it interestingly proves a bit more difficult to copy especially when the op tosses in some nuances like extra long dahs and inconsistently spaced dits. Bugs can be annoying sometimes when they send “EN” instead of “R”. At least that is what I’m assuming they are sending when they do that. It was some fun practice and I found myself enjoying the slower pace code as I was drinking my morning coffee on Sunday. The SKCC hosts quite a few Weekend Sprintathons throughout the year, so maybe I’ll get the straight key out or buy a better one and begin participating in the events myself.
If you’re a regular reader here, you’d maybe be asking yourself how I’m listening in on all these contests, or maybe you’re not. Either way, I want to share a really great idea that has helped me be able to still “participate” in the radio hobby, even if just from a listening perspective. Months ago, a fellow VWS club member shared a link on the club’s Google Groups site for another local ham’s software-defined radio that was being shared online. I find this to be extremely valuable given my living situation which prevents permanent and efficient antennas to be deployed. I am relegated to putting a shortened 20 meter EFHW up on the end of a 33ft mast and tying the other end to the deck railing. Then taking it all down after I’m done. This can be a pain in the backside when it’s late in the evening and I want to work a contest, especially if the contest runs late into the night. I just don’t even bother with those. Having a radio available for listening pleasure online is a great way to develop head copy skills and also to do a bit of shortwave listening, though that is not especially enjoyable since most of the radio stations seem to be foreign stations in languages I do not know, religious talk shows or church sermons, political talk shows, or sports shows. None of those interest me. There are one or two good music stations that I come across from time to time and listen to for a bit.
The folks over at BaMaTech Feinmechanik had decided to liquidate their company upon the passing of their founder recently and as the BaMaKey paddles were well-sought after, a friend and I both submitted orders for our own. I ordered a TP-II with matching magnetic base and also a TP-III. This was two weeks ago and I’ve heard no replies from the company about shipping. I sent an inquiry this weekend in hopes that they could provide some information or at least a confirmation that I got my order in on time. If you look at their site now, they have no Morse key inventory for sale anymore.
73s everyone and enjoy the upcoming week.
Matthew, K2MAS
K2MAS.net is not affiliated with any of the sites or products listed in this article. All opinions are the author’s own.
As a member of Amazon’s Associate program, I earn a small commission on qualifying purchases made through referrals. This helps offset the costs of hosting this website and are greatly appreciated.
K2MAS.net 