Last night I was tuning around the lower end of 20m trying to find a workable station in all my noise. I heard a VU2 very strong calling CQ on beacon mode and gave him a call. He came back with "bad CW bad CW bad CW" from a keyboard I think, probably a macro. I had to call him several times before he got my call right.
I am a bug user. No apologies. I started with straight key as an R/0 and tried electronic paddles but could not master them, probably because of a tendency to lengthen dahs on the straight key, I would end up sending too many dahs on the paddles. Hence I settled on bug key many years ago.
All my CQs are captured on RBN so it must be pretty accurate. And in fact I do try to send as perfectly as possible.
I don't think I'm that bad an operator: I'm a member of all the "prestigious" CW clubs, and regularly ragchew when conditions are good.
It seems that the VU was probably using a CW reader like the one built in to the K3, which is pretty useless, as are most of them. Anything but pure CW is rejected.
The VU came back with my call as 8U1UV, 9U2VU, 9U1UU until he go it right after I had send my call several times. In between he kept insulting me with a macro "Bad CW Bad CW" etc.
I wonder if this is the future of CW where operators can only recognise their own call from a DX station working a pileup, then respond with a macro 5NN TU.
If so it is a pretty bleak future. May as well just let loose the radios and PCs on automatic.
After this QSO I continued to listen to the VU calling CQ and noticed that he had the same problem with another VU who sounded as if he was using a straight key.
73 de Bad Operator