6 meter magic band ARRL VHF Contest

That must be it; not as fast as the cave people.

 

nah, it's not propaganda. It neither hurts nor helps me if you know CW... based on experience, I know it opens up a significant portion of the bands to those who can use it and that many, many, many, other countries still require CW which means you're opportunities to work those countries - if you care to - are increased if you can use CW.

 

Prefer more modern digital modes..to each there own. CW is quaint, sort of like smoke signals.

 

it is quaint; but it works -- without a device to decode it.

 

That's partially true---the device needed to decode it is called a brain (which is why I still haven't learned more cw other than "CQ" and "SOS" over the years).

 

The Magic Band was real magic for me, working VHF contest digital JT65 and saw E51WL decode. thought it was a bad decode, but came up several times so I called him and we had a good qso. FN33 to BI00 He was running 1500W to a 7 element and I was 100W to 5 element.

From confirm email;
Hi there,
I have your report, and obviously you have mine,
I'll accept that.
Great contact, but I wish i had been able to get the ea8dbm attention!!
73, de Warwick
7 element Yagi and 1500W

 

That much effort for a JT65 "contact" doesn't sound like magic. Magic to me is when someone's voice from halfway across the country pops out of the noise, they have no signal above the noise floor on the meter, yet they sound like they are across the street. Magic!

 

CW, the original digital mode,works for me everytime!!

 

I worked kp4eit in fk68. But was not a active contester.

 

It's easier for some to put down CW than to be honest when they say a band is dead without first checking the CW portion of the band.

It might be better and much more polite to look at CW and say: "Everyone's taste is in his/her own mouth." For some, it was a beginning in ham radio and for others a captivating discovery.

To slam CW as some kind of "Neanderthalish" mode shows a lack of appreciation for the history of our great hobby, a hobby that continues to amaze and interest a lot of hams, old and new, with such a wide range of modes, options and activity. Sure, some digital modes are great for keyboarders, and I found RTTY a lot of fun in the past with this same view, but a whale of a lot of others have just as much fun and gratification from CW whether with a keyboard or a pound of brass with a trigger. And for those who may not know, CW is also keyboardable and can be mated with a computer in ways that only email is comparable. Also, it's not only Western Union and the railroads that have CW in their history.

Just read the posts here then tuned to 50.125 and heard nothing but a lot of background static for several minutes. But suddenly, out of the 'ether' I heard someone ask (with no callsign), "Is this frequency in use?"

Yes indeedy, Maple, there are all kinds out there.

 

Certainly MAGIC as we approach the bottom of cycle 24. MAGIC!

 

Somebody got all fired up over their CW God.
It's easy for the Morse coder to say the bands are dead instead of being honest and trying JT65 first.

 

Peculiar how the old coot crowd has to hijack every thread to pontificate the virtues of Morse code.

Now back to discussing the VHF Contest and the magic of 6 meters.

 

with my less-than-stellar antenna, i was able to make some really great contacts during the VHF contest on 6m...using CW...

Im not an old coot; just precocious

 

Sunday afternoon was in and out. The weird thing was when it was in it was to VA6AN (DO42) and that was it.
All afternoon, VA6AN was coming in and only VA6AN.
Now I did hear him working the entire southwest but for me, it was just that one station coming in.
I did work him using my 5BTV and the TS-590S with, seemingly no problem.
He was racking up the grid squares while I was stuck with just that one. Strange band!

Have fun
73
Gary