A few days ago, I have met a guy in W5 on 15m. He was one of those who finishes his each transmission with BK. I knew there had been such guys anywhere but dared to ask him if it was common to finish transmission with BK. He denied that and explained it had been a kind of habit for him.
I fully understood him. Many people use BK in stead of each other's identification. It must be a kind of habit as he said. Even if the sender is not willing to do so, it hastens me to finish the QSO with him. As a matter of fact, those BK user always finish a QSO without proceeding to "tell me your story" process. I could not help feeling an obvious influence from contesting on this way of operation.
Nowadays, contesting is a dominant style of operation. Plain week day contests are often heard in addition to the contests held at almost every week end. The week end one is often multiple all over the world. Non contesters without WARC band set up like me should keep off the air almost half a week. Some clubs have training programs to educate young beginners to be contesters. No wonder that the contest style QSO has been becoming the standard style of operation.
I still wonder what is the merit of this type of operation. CW is a very slow mode of communication whether they may hasten with use of BK or not. If all of us "contestize" QSO, it may sound like exchange of jargon. Will it attract young people? They will know very soon that such jargon or symbol exchange is totally meaningless. I have already mentioned of this contest style QSOs as loss of the form in QSO. I don't think it will bring anything good to the future of ham radio. It deprives rich possibilities of ham radio communication on this mode.
Ending with BK, where do you go in a hurry?
Shin,
ReplyDeleteI heard those "BK" guys before the current popularity of contesting (is that really a word) blossomed. I believe they simply have no idea of BK's appropriate use or perhaps think it makes them sound like they are good Ops. It is unfortunate that the presence of such operators has spawned a new generation that think it's a correct way to operate. I was always a fan of true QSK and used it night after night in a conversational mode with my friends and new saavy CW ops. We never used BK. It was clear from the content of the conversation when to comment or change "speakers." The heart of conversational CW is close to dead now. All we can do is carry on wiwth the best practices we can and hope it rubs off. Cheers de K2YWE
Dan
DeleteI should have described it as contest style QSOs which have given rise to use of BK. They are concerned about only how many QSOs they would make. Not quality of a QSO but only quantity of QSOs is pursued. Sadly enough, I agree the conversational CW is going to die.
Shin
Conversational CW will die only as a result of lack of participation. From my point of view, it will continue to live as long as I do. After that, I would have to contemplate whether it's important to me. My guess is not.
ReplyDeleteDon,
DeleteHow do you think about the relationship between contesting and conversation on CW? I won't blame contesters but contest activities are, in my view, suppressing conversation on CW in double ways. One is occupying time and bands during contests. The other is advocacy for contest style QSOs. I berlieve we should analyze it, not staying observing it as a general phenomenon of participation.
Shin