It was almost 50 years ago when I started ham radio. All I could afford was a 6AQ5 single transmitter with a wire dipole antenna. CW was the only mode I could work DX with. What a thrill I have felt working abroad with this small set up. I was surely bitten by CW bug those days. Except for the period of med school days, I have been quite active on CW. What has driven me to go on with this old and inefficient mode of communication for such a long time?
One reason is, I think, that CW lovers are always a kind of mania who go on enjoying this mode for long time. We could get along each other for decades and even experience the other's lives together like real family members. I could figure quite a number of those friends of CW lover at once. Sadly, some of them have gone silent key for now. I still remember of them so well.
The above mentioned reason might sound a kind of tautology. CW lovers love CW long. I should emphasize that it could enable us live together with the other CW lovers all over the world in close relationship for long time, possibly, for life long period. I believe or, I should say, wish that this long lasting relationships with foreign people with the different culture and history let us understand each other and may lead to the consciousness of cosmopolitan in the future. I am not very optimistic for this but, considering what is going on in the various parts of the world, could not help wishing this way.
Then, what attracts us this mode is the next question. Recent medical studies using the functional MRI tell us copying CW could be highly involved in the function of reading in brain. In reception of CW, conversion of the code to letter or language is a process made without being conscious of that while the latter process of understanding afterwards is quite the same as reading sentences. CW requires highly intellectual ability. So does transmission. This characteristics might make us devoted to CW for a long time. We won't bored with it. But listening to beautiful CW, we could relax and activate ourselves.
I have enjoyed every aspect of CW in the past. Contesting, DXing and so forth. However, ragchewing and understanding the other people remain the last and most important thing for me. I don't force the others not to enjoy the other aspects of CW at all. But my experience and thoughts on CW after being devoted to it for almost half a century might mean something to young CW lovers.
Shin
JA1NUT
You make an interesting point about the reading and sending of CW, Shin - and a highly pertinent one about the sociable nature of CW operators.
ReplyDeleteBob, M0PIE
Bob,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. There are more research works on the code reception from the standpoint of cerebral physiology. The code reception process has been studied by psychologists in the past. It is the topics for the physiologists with the arm of functional MRI etc nowadays. The code reception is the most basic process of reception in brain for communication, which may attract those researchers. We are interested in the process from pragmatic viewpoint as for how to improve skill with CW hi. I would summarize them in the future.
Yes, the sociable nature of CW communication is quite important. The contesters or DXers are seemingly forgetting it, I am afraid. We should not forget it.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete