Save time: every dit counts!

Let’s take a reverse on our usual promotion of Quality Over Quantity and help out the Quantity Over Quality 5NN-TU crowd. They need help as they do lack imagination! This article will reveal several more ways to save critical time for the Quantity group while setting the Quality group free.

On the basis of “every dit counts” let’s take a look at our options.

Some of the Quantity group do not send K at the end of a CQ to save time, never mind that it actually wastes more time than sending a K because the other station has to pause longer to be sure the CQ actually ended, worse, if it is weak.

However, when this and other facts are pointed out to them, they don’t believe us. So perhaps this is a waste of time, but even so, it will be entertaining for the rest of us!

5NN TU — it’s too long! Let’s look at how we can suggest to the Quantity hams, how to squeeze a greater quantity of callsigns into their log within any given amount of time. Shorten the 5NN!

You can do this by sending “ENN” as this is now widely understood that E is an abbreviation of 5.

Then instead of sending TU join it together to squeeze another dit of time out and make it X. AX1FOC, that Frightful Old Club that has long embraced the 5NN TU, was doing this, great idea!

But, since we’re wiser than FOC, we suggest joining it all together as dDdDd (di-Dah-di-Dah-dit) as this then serves even more time saving: you are sending both “599” as “ENN” joined together, and, this doubles as “end of message / end of transmission” so you don’t need to send any TU (or X) after. You can then already move on to the next one!

Many have also found a way to drop the CQ: simply send the callsign. No matter that many of us will think you’re calling someone else in a pile up or not, there is always hope that someone might reply if your callsign appears sexy enough, or you seem important enough to send it without a CQ.

TX7N UP could learn from this, he, she or they were calling CQ DE TX7N UP CQ DE TX7N UP CQ DE TX7N UP presumably somehow running full duplex with some remote receiver. OK, unlikely, more likely just trying to create the non-existent pile up or wait for it to arrive.

Always remember, you will not seem important if you don’t have a pile up, the bigger the better, it is not just about working stations the kick is in appearing important. So, create the pile up, while waiting for the internet spotters, don’t answer calls, just call and send UP UP UP.

One bright fellow replied slowly with TX7NUP TX7NUP TX7NUP DE CALLSIGN KN, cool as!

So how can this be improved? Simple. First, no need to send DE. CQ TX7N UP is OK. Heck, no need to CQ, just TX7N UP, it’s an important callsign, right? In fact, since it is all over the internet and everyone is arriving to the pile up via the internet spotter, just send “UP”.

Good enough? Nope. We’re experts in time saving. There’s more saving to be done! No need to send the callsign either, since it is already known via the internet spotting, so just send it once every 15 minutes to comply with your license, and create mystery for those without the internet.

This then just leaves only “UP”. UP and nothing else. Interspersed with CALLSIGN <AR> (as in ENN run together) and then the next CALLSIGN <AR> and so on. In this way, we also get rid of the 5NN TU which many of us hate so much believing it to lack Quality.

Once this catches on as the next inevitable further decline in Quality to get more Quantity, it will then be obvious that we no longer need the long P and can do with “U” only, this clearly means UP.

And, why send the full callsign of the other station? They’ll enter it on the Internet Logging System, or on the electronic QSL and when they make payment, you’ll simply insert their callsign. So, as an acknowledgment, it should be enough to send the last 2 letters of a callsign.

Now, see how much time we’ve saved and how much more Quantity we can get! Instead of CQ DE TX7N UP we now have simply: U — a huge saving! And, when G4OJW calls you, send JW <AR>

Done and dusted, then again: U. Then if VK5EEE replies, send: EE <AR>

In fact, I’ve taken the whole thing even further, if I reply to a CQ and get my callsign 5NN, and nothing else, as is frequently the case in these CW end-times, I simply reply with EE. After all, EE is sent at the very end of a QSO, you can insert the 599 in your log without me needing to send it!

Simple as that: all you need to send to them is EE, then spin that VFO and look for the next CQ, without wasting time, until you hit on that one who know how to do more than push buttons.

This allows the rest of us who are interested in Quality over Quantity and even like to take our time as in sipping a glass of fine juice, rather than gulping it down in one go, to enjoy a leisurely CW QSO at slow or moderate speed, unhurried and relaxed, so let’s keep those QSO alive and regular!

And don’t forget to help out those who would be totally frustrated with you giving out info they’re not interested in such as a genuine report, name, QTH: simply send EE when they reply with 5NN.

This way, we’re all happy: they can move on immediately to the next callsign, and we can move on to the next QSO.

Those looking for a real QSO, tend to end CQ calls with PSE K (they’re NOT saving time, the more dahs the better), and some have even resorted to calling CQ CQ CQ QSO DE… or an endless stream (not more than around 9 or 10 is recommended) of CQ to dispatch the impatient.

Reminder to those of us Quality True Telegraphists in Europe: let’s not forget our friends in more isolated parts of the world who yearn for a real QSO. Let’s take time off 40m, and go to 10, 12, 15m, after all, it may be the last Solar Cycle Peak of our lifetimes.

Instead of the low dipole (or end fed) that works so well on 40 for single hop QSO, put up a vertical elevated Ground Plane Antenna for say 12m or 15m, it’s only 3 or 3.5m tall respectively. And radials? Trust me on this: what we’ve been doing with elevated radials is all wrong…

Long story short, it is not necessary to have a ground mounted vertical with loads of (buried) radials, and the alternative of a few raised radials is rarely balanced, resulting in significant radiation off the radials instead of all on the vertical for low angle DX. This is now easily solved:

Auto-balancing radials – Balanced Loop Radials – anything from 1/16 to 1/4 wavelength long each but in a loop making even a 30m vertical have a radials radius of as little as ONE METER! Tests show it will perform as well or better than a GP with 3 elevated radials.

A 15m Elevated Ground Plane is thus only 3.5m tall and only 50cm wide. No excuses, put one up!

See JH1GNU for full details.


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