CW QSO

Last night i worked 9M2AR on CW mode with 29 wpm. It was fast and yet quite difficult to copy. There are some words that i could not copy on the fly, i need to practice more especially Malay words. 9M2AR was a good CW operator, but i am not. When i go DXing (contacting long path station) on 20 meter band, i work on CW mode. CW made me reached USA, Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan stations easily. Not like SSB mode which is my preferable mode for ragchewing on 40 meter band.

Ragchewing on CW mode is not easy, it takes time to learn. For the first time, i was very afraid. I think i will make lot of mistakes. I went to IRC, on #ubuntu-hams i chatted with Fabian DJ1YFK (IARU HST Winner). He told me that many people afraid to work on CW for the first time, but when you are familiar to that mode, it will be fun. I agreed with everything he said. Most of the QSL cards or eQSL that i receive was in CW mode. Some of them are SSB's.

I went to Kota Bharu and met Azman 9M2MT. Looking to his shack, i saw unplugged ICOM desktop mic far away from his desk, only a Begali iambic key connected to the ICOM pro III transceiver. He showed me his keys collection. In my mind, i was thinking that maybe his preferable mode for QSO is CW mode.

I saw many ham's shack. I went to 9M2AR, 9M2SX, 9M2MT and saw at least one morse key on their shack. CW and hams could not be separate, although CW is not all hams preferable mode. I am not a good CW operator, never was.

from 9m2ar.com