Has your CW rig turned into a white noise machine?

We all have.

Serious thing to think of, for two reasons, though--

1. Keep your gain down (RF a bit and AF). Your brain discerns weak signals in the background better when it's not overwhelmed. It sounds
counterintuitive, but you can better copy what you need to copy when the overall audio level is lower than you would probably gravitate towards.

2. Preserve your hearing. I've got a distinct notch in my audiogram in both ears from noise coming out of HF receivers for seven hours-in-a-row, 5 or
6 days per week. Nerve-loss hearing decrement--the most common cause. Once it's gone, it's gone forever. We also assault our ears daily with power
equipment, road noise, trucks, and many of us listened to too-loud music for 20 years of our life. Use hearing protection for mowing the lawn and
even briefly using electric tools. If you would have to raise your voice to be understood in a noisy environment, your hearing is being exposed to
potentially damaging sound pressure.

3. Don't wear your headphones right over your ears on CW or phone--wear them on your cheeks just forward of the outer ear. Listen thru bone
conduction. If you feel the need for external noise-blocking and place them over your ears, turn the gain w a y down.

If you're getting ringing or hearing the refrigerator sending CW, that means you've recently put your ears in damage territory.

Take care of yourself. If you don't do that, you can't help anyone else.


73

 

Just wait for a contest weekend. They always coincide with those mysterious Sporadic-“C” openings, when “dead” bands rise from the grave for up to 48 hours.