Sending CQ at the speed at which you want to converse -v- QRS Etiquitte.

[PA0BLAH]

And in the end, thats what ham radio is about - communication between people by mutually agreed protocol.

73 - Rob

SIC, sick
Bob

RAY W7AHA,

I was looking for pristine beauty in the clear mountain air - not a near death experience. If I wanted that, I'd have stayed in uniform (or married to my ex-wife ... )    Shocked 

ROFL

As a matter of fact, increasing ur speed with well formed code, as far as I see, only exercising with a robot (computer) is effective. Using the bands to make rag chews with 20 or 30% missing code, due to the required speed necessary to increase your speed, is quite not polite. It says pse qrq such that I can just copy 70%

[K8AXW]

ATL: 

Ray,

You make a valid point, and I can understand where you are coming from. However, being a relatively new ham (3 1/2 years) I would like to counter with this: If I only answered CQs sent at or below my comfort level, A) my speed would never improve

I got into this thread late.  This discussion is very informative; very interesting.  So far I've had no reason to comment until I read the above quote.  I felt that I had to respond to this just in case other "newbs" were following this thread.

I have to disagree with the thought that "If I only answered CQs sent at or below my comfort level, my speed would never improve."

This is entirely incorrect.  If you operated at 18wpm each and every contact, never speeding up, your ability will HAVE to improve; your speed will HAVE to increase with time!

The reason is as you set at one speed your comfort level will increase.  To rephrase this, as you set at one speed, copying at that speed, it becomes less and less of an effort.  You will be able to stop using a pencil if you use one and start to "head copy" after awhile.

If you then listen to 20wpm you will find it necessary to put forth a bit of effort but you will be able to copy 20wpm.  If you come completely out of your "comfort zone" you will be able to copy faster than 20wpm.

Rather you realize it or not, this is the usual process of learning code!  Constantly forcing yourself to go faster than what you are comfortable with is nothing but unpleasant work and in many cases self-defeating.

Al - K8AXW

[PA0BLAH]

I have to disagree with the thought that "If I only answered CQs sent at or below my comfort level, my speed would never improve."

This is entirely incorrect. 

Is is not so in my opinion Al.
May be when you start at 5 wpm you increase 10 12 or 15 that way, but certainly not to the sky as limit.

When you persist, I ask you what your increment was the last 5 years.

In practice you increase your speed by copying faster such that you copy about 70%. When you do that a number of days, without much advancement, you go back and it turns out that your lower speed has a higher reliability.

However the sky is not the limit, there is a saturation level that is different for different persons.

When your idea should be true, the speed that you copy reliable should increase with aging of active hams and faster when they spent a lot of time with their appliance.


Bob