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- Category: Featured News
- Roger Cooke By
GB2CW - Morse Corner - January 14th
LOCKDOWN again!
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We are in a more restricted time yet again for a few more months. What better time could you wish for to learn Morse? Why should you do it? Well, one good reason is that you are missing out on lots of things:
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1 47% of the amateur radio frequencies that are available.
2 A lot of fun which can be had every day.
3 A lot of contests, activity periods, DX-peditions, IOTAs, SOTAs, etc.
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You will also be able to listen to the CW end of the band and not hear just a load of interrupted tones at varying speed. You will hear people, even friends, and make new friends. It will all come to life once you have mastered the learning of the code.
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But hey, you DO have time now. Stop the frivolous activities, such as watching TV, and join one of the classes locally. You will not regret it if you are interested in global RADIO communications.
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We do it, not because it's easy, but because it's hard, but the rewards await you.
CW 80m Net
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Norfolk Amateur Radio Club CW Net.
This is an informal net, to enable people to become familiar with operating in a net, netting properly and being short and to the point overs.
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NARC Net: 3545kHz plus or minus QRM.
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The Net Controller, normally Malcolm G3PDH, will call CQ at 8.30 p.m. local time on Monday evenings. Call with just your call sign once until he acknowledges you.
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1 Keep a note of the order. This will be sent.
2 Net on to the Net Controller to the nearest Hz if you can.
3 Keep overs short with brief comments, no waffling, and pass transmission to the next on the list.
4 There is a 2m discussion after the Net on 145.250MHz
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We had nine people on the net this week. Great result! Thanks for joining in the fun.
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Morse Classes for winter 2020 are going well.
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Report from G3LDI, the Bad Cop, on the Monday QSO format session. 145.250MHz / 3.521MHz 1000 local time.
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The New Year started well. I did normal headcopy practice this week with speeds starting at 25 wpm and finishing at the end of the session at 30wpm. There were three taking part, Phil G4LPP, Chris G4CCX and Les G0DFC. Mark G0TMT was in listening mode only because his speed is not up there at the moment
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Join in and see how well you can do. We have a lot of fun and laughs on there, especially with the EISH5 groups!
You will be most welcome.
73 de Roger, G3LDI
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Report from Jim, the Good Cop, on his 25wpm session. GB3NB repeater 2000 local time Tuesdays
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Beginners CW 25wpm 8pm GB3NB Tuesday 12th January 2021
This was the first meeting of the New Year and represents a great chance to make a big New Year’s resolution come true. Learning CW is not easy and at 25wpm it sounds like it should be very difficult indeed, but this is not so. Its all about recognising sounds of characters and not about counting dots and dashes.
The group on the repeater consisted of Tony, M0XTF, John, G8VPE and Thomas M0TEO plus others who already are at a reasonable speed, so they were listening in only and perhaps a few secret listeners as well!
We covered five characters, C N Q 5 9 and with these we can send early reports like 559, 599 or 5NN using cut numbers and that standard CQ which we hear daily on the bands. Its all about learning the sounds and even after this first lesson some of the commonly heard reports or CQs will hopefully ‘pop off the page’ when you tune across the CW end of the bands.
Worth emphasising that this does not work unless the characters are practised during the week. There are MP3 and text files on the NARC website to allow you to go over the new set of characters until they are second nature.
Until next week…
73 de Jim
g3yla
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Morse with Anubis - Tuesdays 1000 on 145.250MHz. Thursdays on GB3NB 1000 local time.
GB2CW Report 14-01-21
Two sessions of GB2CW this week, and very successful sessions.
The Tuesday session was attended by Phil G4LPP, and Tony G0OOR. We ran plain language to start, and increased the speed to 23wpm. The next phase was QSO format, and first we ran QSOs at 23WPM, just playing the file once. The results were very good, so we tried QSO format at 26wpm, playing the QSO twice. To finish, there was callsign practice, finishing at 25wpm.
Thursday's session was attended by Phil G4LPP, Robert G4TUK, and Alex 2E0FHF. A little different this time. The first exercise was radio and TV valves, in groups of five, at 21wpm. Essentially mixed groups, which are very difficult, but with the possibility of the valves being recognised. Once everyone got 'dialled in' the results were very good.
Then number groups, up to a maximum of 28wpm. 100 percent copy from everyone.
Then, to finish QSO format at 25wpm, played once only. This went very well with some 100 percent copy.
So, a really enjoyable session, speeds are going up all the time.
73 de Chris G4CCX
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Morse with Doctor Phil.
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Report from GB2CW beginners class, Friday evenings at 8pm on 145.250MHz.
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The raw beginners CW class is starting again at 8pm this Friday 8th January on 144.250MHz with week 11.
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We are now past the learning of the alphabet and numbers and are starting to practice callsign recognition, Q codes, numbers and short words. Character speed is 14 WPM with word speed 7 WPM. At this level we’re about right for new members who took their CW certificate back in the day to get an A licence but have never used CW since!!
Looking forward to seeing you all there again.
Happy new year and 73 from Phil G4LPP / GB2CW.
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Phil's email address: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Email him if you wish to join in.
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By the way, Phil is a GOOD cop, so you will be treated kindly!
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Report from the Executive Club, Malcolm G3PDH - Thursdays GB3NB 2000 local time.
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Advanced CW session.
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The higher speed session took place on Thursday night over GB3NB with speeds ranging from 27 to 29 on plain language, 5 letter groups, mixed groups, call signs and short QSO formats.
This session was joined by Pete G4RAV, with a much improved signal into the repeater, Chris G4CCX, taking it down directly on to a keyboard and Paul M1AFQ, managing to copy increasing amounts despite speeds being higher than his comfort zone.
It is interesting to note how receiving a known format such as call signs is easier than randomised mixtures of letters and figures and how double word spacing between groups provides sufficient milliseconds thinking time to make a difference. You don’t have to be fully conversant with copying such speeds to join in, a partial copy will still bring your average speed up.
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73
Malcolm G3PDH
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The CWOPS CWT activity periods are still as popular as ever.
There will be several medallions heading this way in the spring, of varying colour, several gold, silver and at least one bronze.
If you aspire to join CW OPS, prove your worth with a few >20wpm QSOs, chatty ones, and you can get in! It is a lot of fun operating in the CWTs, and terrific practice too.
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The link below is to FAV22. THis is a military station on 3881.00kHz and runs at varying speeds with groups of letters, numbers, punctuation and procedural signals. It is on 24/7 so take a look It is well worth the practice.
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https://www.r-e-f.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=715&Itemid=444
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Another freq to check is 6.825MHz.
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If you look up this link in Google Chrome, it will translate into English for you.
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Another interesting video is the link below. Paul G4ZBA kindly sent this in. Sadly it demonstrates that those mostly interested in CW are of a certain vintage!
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Email me with input, queries, keys, paddles, classes and so on. Hopefully I can help or know a man that can!
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73 de Roger, G3LDI GB2CW Coordinator. May the Morse be with you.