It’s that time of year again. Shopping, baking, cooking, parties, more shopping, and more parties. It’s a time for hustle and bustle, shaking and moving, busting a gut, or getting a gut. “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” so sings Andy Williams. Bah! Humbug! with all this Christmas retail extravaganza. The holiday season used to begin after Thanksgiving (now called Black Friday), but has since moved up in front of Halloween.
But I digress. Towards the end of the year is a time for me to reflect on the thrills of victory and the agonies of defeat. I’ve had some of both. One big thrill was I got to retire for the second and last time. It seems I am busier now then when I was working a job. It’s a good kind of busy though. One agony, was I let CW slip a bit. When band conditions were poor, I switched to FT8 for my POTA activations. I made a boatload of contacts all over the world and finished 5 Kilo’s. However, that did not help my desire to become more proficient with CW. Back in the 90s as a Tech+, CW was the gateway into the world of HF. My first DX contacts were HF CW. Studying CW back in the day was tedious. I had a couple of ARRL cassette tapes that I played over and over. It was enough to get me up to 13 wpm and my Advanced ticket (KM5AV).
CW worked well for me at the time. I worked second shift and with my “shack” in our bedroom, using headphones, I was able to log a few contacts each night while I wound down from the evening’s work while the wife slept. I got pretty good eventually getting up to about 18 wpm. Then work, kids, school, new jobs, etc., put CW on the back burner. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I started my journey back.
As I said earlier, I allowed myself to drift from CW. That is solely my fault. I only gave myself a general direction to proceed and no real standards to gauge my progress. When I started back, I was around 16 wpm and very shaky. I did manage to get myself up to around 20-22 wpm doing POTA hunting/activating. Hence my downfall. I can do an exchange at 20+ wpm but that’s about all. I trained myself to do an exchange. Where I want to be is to be able to engage in a CW QSO. To converse using CW. And I want to get my speed up around 28 wpm.
Bringing this back around, here I sit at the end of one year and the beginning of the next. This is usually a time for reflection on where I have been and where I am going. The tradition, is to make New Year’s Resolutions with the hope of succeeding in making them come true. I try to keep mine realistic and few. Next year, I will have two. The first will be to become more proficient with CW. With some personal hesitation I signed up for a class with CW Innovations https://cwinnovations.net/. My first experience with them was a 30-45 min. One-on-one interview with the instructors. It was a good experience, we talked about what I was trying to accomplish and we touched on how that was going to happen. One thing they stressed was everyone, regardless of position or skill stayed on the same level (peer-to-peer). The other thing I like was that we would get code-buddies. Someone to practice with, on the air. I always say that if you want to get better get on the air. With a code buddy, you’re working with someone in the same boat as you, someone you know on the other end — I like it. My class starts the middle of January. The other thing I am going to do is use CW as much as possible. That means using CW for hunting and activations. I may still do some digital, but nowhere near what I did the past year.
The second resolution is I am going to try to up my game when it comes to my blog. I am going to push myself to do better with the written content, try to be a bit more polished, and provide more breath when it comes to subject matter. I also plan on doing better with the videos. I am going to spend more time editing them. I recently purchased a MacBook Pro to help me. One thing that was very annoying was getting content from my iPhone and iPad in the field into my Windows machine. The aggravation would drive creativity right out of me. Now, as soon as I take a picture on my iPhone, Boom! It’s right here on there Mac ready to use.
There you have it. Let’s see how I do. I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas or a Happy Holiday Season and a Happy New Year. I hope you all will take some time and give yourself a meaningful resolution to work on next year. 73 de Scott
KK4Z 