K3WWP's CW Stories

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Jeff - VE6HF

Hi! I love your site about CW stories! It's great. I want to share with you my experience with CW.

I've been a Ham since Oct 22, 1990 and had an Elmer, Gary (VE6DZ was VE6MAV) and helped me pass my BASIC and Advanced exams. Well next came the code. I was scared of the code. My Elmer did not have his code and he said he was "tone deaf" and could not learn the code. This made me very nervous since I figured he was a very talented person. Anyhow he got me into a computer program called SuperMorse and made me a practice tape (I wish I still had that tape but it wore out!). What a great fellow.

Fast forward many months. I went to local clubs Saturday morning coffee and someone challenged me to take my code. So off to the testing room I went, ill-prepared and nervous! I can't remember a time that I was so scared when I was around that age (20). Why was I so nervous? Anything called a test gets me nervous not to mention I was ill-prepared. Anyhow I took the exam and passed my 5 WPM! I didn't have much to smile about in those days but I was deliriously happy.

What did I do after I got my 5 WPM? Well I went to school, got married, got a job, and had kids. In 2005 I asked the local club if they were going to hold a code class. They said that they might have one depending on interest. Well needless to say there was no interest in code classes. What a shame. I didn't really get active again until Nov 2005. I pulled out a dusty 10 meter rig (that I had never used before but kept in storage) and hooked it up and was active on 10 meters! Well I called CQ on 10 meter SSB and ran into my current Elmer, Guyle (VE6GFZ) and we had a common interest in getting into CW. I had my first ever CW contact on Dec 29, 2005 with Guyle. What a blast!

We practiced CW also over the Internet together and met with other people too using a program called CW Communicator. It's sort of like Instant Messenger but using code! Best of all it is free. Met lots of cool people and had a lot of fun.

I joined the FISTS CW club in March 2006 since I really love the code. I'm not very good at it yet but I hope that practice will help me out. The CW operators are a pretty good bunch out there. I hope to make CW contacts every week and my mic is not even plugged in! I think it will stay that way. I'm just having too much fun with the code!

Let's keep the interest of Morse Code up! ZUT! - Thanks, Jeff Makus (VE6HF)

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