CW Competency

I have an admission to make. Although I love CW, use it a lot (starting in 1972!) and I can comfortably operate at high speed in a CW contest I am not a very good CW operator. Outside of contest exchanges my sending is often full of errors and copying ordinary conversation text is not great.

The problem isn't really lack of ability but lack of practice. When I use it a lot in daily operating, as I did early in my ham life, I do better. I no longer practice at high speed very often. Some evenings I will listen in on a high speed CW QSO -- 40+ wpm -- to see how well I can do. Depending on my mood and alertness I often do pretty well. 

Sending is a different problem. Outside of the 20 to 35 wpm range my error rate climbs. Both high and low speeds are difficult because my fingers are unable to get the timing right until I adjust the speed at which my mind is thinking. During conversations, I make flubs when I think of the spelling of words or I lose track of the sentence because it's so much slower than spoken conversation.

In the heat of a contest my ability to copy fast CW improves. Everything is fast in a competitive event and my reaction time improves. QSOs are structured and there are few times one has to send or copy anything different. Jumping on the paddles at that speed can be comical as I struggle to move my fingers side to side rather than up and down on the keyboard. I do better to avoid the paddles to keep my sending clean. 

About the only time I hit the paddles is to greet a friend or to send a partial call while running. I avoid even that when I do SO2R since I am not always certain which radio the paddles will key. Like most contesters, I strive to use the paddles as little as possible.

All that said, am I really so bad a CW operator? How should one assess ability and performance? You and I may have passed a code test years ago, but that says very little since the speed was slow and the content uncomplicated. 

It is surprisingly easy to get by in a CW rag chew by bungling up to half the characters received (or sent, for that matter) since context allows us to fill in the rest. When we only respond to the bits we did copy, our QSO partner will usually be none the wiser, and vice versa.

The difficulties I run into during a CW rag chew -- I'm mean a real conversation -- include:

• CW is far slower than a spoken conversation or reading text, and I often lose the thread of the received sentence by the time it reaches the end. This applies to sending and receiving
  
• Poorly sent CW makes me puzzle over a character or word group, and I may then lose the context or the gist of the sentence, or I miss the next several characters or word and so lose it entirely. These sending errors include run together characters and words, backing up to resend a word in which a error was made without an indication that that is the case
• My attention wanders since the flow of the conversation is so much slower than when spoken. That causes more mistakes.
  

I am far from alone with these difficulties. That said, I do well in CW contests. In those events there is no rag chewing so those problems don't apply. The pace is fast and I can stay focussed for hours at a time. CW competency is measured differently in a contest:

• Copy a call sign or exchange (some are quite complicated), at high speed the first time
  
• While running, copy one complete call on the first try when many stations are calling and there is QRM or QRN
• While spinning the VFO, copy a call sign on the first try, identify the station as having completed a CQ or at the end of a QSO, and make my call immediately
• Pull an exceptionally weak station out of the noise level and correctly copy the call sign and exchange
• During SO2R, interleave two CW QSOs and, when receiving on both radios at the same time, copy call signs and exchanges of both
  

Since I am better in contests than in coversations, am I a competent CW operator? If I'm judged to be lacking in competency in either category, am I truly competent? When I jump on the paddles to send something not in a pre-programmed message and I mess it up, is that incompetence or just momentary clumsiness?

Competency in any skill is a matter of practice and critical self examination. Without self examination, no amount of practice will help. Tune across many very active CW stations and you will find at least a few operators who have probably never listened to themselves and remain blissfully unaware about how hard they make it for others to copy them. I wonder if they care. There is no hiding from poor copying ability and that is what many focus on rather than accurate sending.

There is no need for perfection. It's a hobby and CW is a pleasant if archaic method of communication. It is not obsolete in amateur radio since it has the same advantages for weak signals and crowded band conditions that it had a century ago. It particularly shines in contests and DXpeditions by neatly sidestepping accents, languages and QRM. 

CW remains my favourite mode despite my inconsistent use of it and rare engagement in rag chews. But when I do use it, I love it. When it comes to competency, it should be no surprise that I am more interesting in improving my contesting effectiveness. My rag chewing CW skills lag and may never improve. My conversations are done with SSB.