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Author Topic: Good Call For CW  (Read 1480 times)

G3EDM

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Re: Good Call For CW
« Reply #30 on: June 14, 2021, 06:55:54 AM »

I can't find G3WSY in that spreadsheet, so you might be able to get it.

Yes, I have been looking at those spreadsheets too. The most recent one is from early 2020 I think.

I'll be sending the application to Ofcom in the next 24 hours. The three calls I will list in priority order are:
  • G3WYE
  • G3WSY
  • G3EDM
The WYE is a late entry that I only thought of today. It is the name of the village where I live in Kent. Both that call, and WSY, have the advantage of conveying approximately the right "vintage" in relation to when I passed my RAE (1971). Both of these "W" calls appear to be available, upon consulting both QRZ and the Ofcom spreadsheets.

I'm putting EDM only in third place because, despite the sentimental value of my grandfather's initials, it is the wrong vintage; and because it belonged to a ham who was active until a few years ago when he went SK, could be (a) not available from Ofcom and (b) even if it is, it could (I suppose) confuse/upset the SK's ham buddies if they heard it on the air. OTOH if I end up being allocated that call I will not obsess over the issue!

In the end I decided not to worry too much about having a "Good Call" for CW. Neither of the "W" calls are bad for CW but they are not fantastic either.

Anyway, basta! As some of you may realise, I have a tendency to over-think just about everything.

Thank you everyone for your advice.

73 de Martin, KB1WSY
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AC2EU

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Re: Good Call For CW
« Reply #31 on: June 14, 2021, 07:35:46 AM »

Quote
I'll be sending the application to Ofcom in the next 24 hours. The three calls I will list in priority order are:

    G3WYE
    G3WSY
    G3EDM

Of the 3, G3EDM has the best flow, IMO.
Did you try listening to them? Besides it's your Grandfather's call.

G3EDM

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Re: Good Call For CW
« Reply #32 on: June 14, 2021, 08:41:56 AM »

Of the 3, G3EDM has the best flow, IMO.
Did you try listening to them? Besides it's your Grandfather's call.

Yes of course, using my homebrew code oscillator. I agree with you about the CW flow, but as I said, that is not the only factor (upon reflection).

To clarify: it was not my grandfather's call because he was not a ham. Those are his initials, and he was a radio operator in World War One. His description of serving in the trenches as the commanding officer of a radio unit is one of the things that got me into amateur radio as a teenager.

I'll be sending in the application tomorrow, let me sleep on it, but for the moment my choice is as described earlier: WYE, WSY, EDM in that order of priority.

73 de Martin, KB1WSY
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G3EDM

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Re: Good Call For CW
« Reply #33 on: June 15, 2021, 02:42:56 AM »

After sleeping on it, I ended up agreeing with AC2EU. I applied to Ofcom for a licence this morning and listed the three calls in what I consider to be the most harmonious for CW, in order of priority:
  • G3EDM
  • G3WSY
  • G3WYE
It is quite possible that Ofcom will refuse the first choice, because it belonged to a relatively recent SK. No problem, I would be happy with any of the three calls.

As for the moral question posed by applying for an SK call, I ended up deciding that if it is allowed under Ofcom rules, then it is not for me to agonise over the merits of the policy. The letters EDM do have strong personal resonance for me so it is not a flippant choice.

Even in non-Covid times it takes Ofcom "up to two weeks" to process the type of application that I made, so it could be a while before I get the licence.

Thank you everyone for your input. I am very excited to be nearing "key down" time.

73 de Martin, KB1WSY
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NI0C

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Re: Good Call For CW
« Reply #34 on: June 15, 2021, 05:58:21 AM »

Martin,
My good friend Eric, W0TT, was able to research the SK former owner of his callsign. He put a nice tribute to the man on his QRZ page. A real class act-- check it out.
73, Chuck NI0C
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G3EDM

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Re: Good Call For CW
« Reply #35 on: June 15, 2021, 10:43:24 AM »

Martin,
My good friend Eric, W0TT, was able to research the SK former owner of his callsign. He put a nice tribute to the man on his QRZ page. A real class act-- check it out.
73, Chuck NI0C

I have just found a tribute to SK G3EDM and if I do end up obtaining that callsign, I will ask the family for permission to put this profile on my QRZ profile. The tribute was on the RSGB website so I feel it is OK to reproduce it here:

Geoffrey Mills, G3EDM died on 16 December 2014 following a short illness. Despite his declining health Geoff continued to operate his station until his final days, talking to his many friends in UK, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, etc. Geoff was licensed as D2DM just after the war whilst stationed in Hamburg in 1946/47. He was an RSGB member from 1st July 1947 and licensed as G3EDM since 3rd June 1948. During his long and distinguished time as a radio ham Geoff achieved many notable contacts, including contact with more than 2700 different Australian radio hams from his QTH near Chelmsford. A keen amateur bee-keeper as well, Geoff ran the bee-keeper’s net at 8am local time every Sunday on 3722kHz, sharing his immense wealth of bee-keeping knowledge and experience with other radio hams who also keep bees. The bee-keeper net will continue to be run each Sunday morning.

Tribute by Andy Mills, G3NNF
Nephew

73 de Martin, KB1WSY
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G3EDM

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Re: Good Call For CW
« Reply #36 on: June 15, 2021, 11:13:34 AM »

Here's an extract from my grandfather Eric's memoirs. His initials were "EDM" (hence my interest in that callsign). He was a British army radio officer in World War One. Eric was born in 1890 and passed away in 1976.

This is a description of his unit's training in England before being sent to the front in France. Eric was an officer in charge of a Wireless Telegraphy unit.

"Here men of all ranks, who had never seen a W/T set were being trained to understand, use, and repair them.  The officers at least were supposed to become capable of dealing with long distance reception, such as the Atlantic transmissions on 2000 metres wave length for which we had a 500 yard aerial on masts, and transmission and reception on 200-500 metres with portable sets of various ranges from a mile or two up to 50 miles.  We knew about "valves" which were being used for "detection" ("rectification") in the longer range sets, and in the cumbersome 3 valve amplifiers in "listening posts", but the short range "trench" sets which were my concern were operated by sparking coils for transmission and carborundum crystals for detection.

"The Trench set, about the size of a small record player, required if possible 100 yards of aerial on two 15 feet masts and was powered by a heavy 6 volt accumulator.  The transmission coil of flat "basket" weave had tappings to the studs of a rotary turning switch in the centre of the set.  To the left was a powerful "shocking coil", with an interrupter which could be crudely adjusted to a given "pitch" of buzz.  To the right was the knob of a condenser tuning the reception coil (coupled to the transmission coil), the crystal holder, and an elaborate Morse key with "shorting" contacts to protect the crystal during transmission.  Faults were almost always due to the elaborateness of the key contacts or a dud crystal.  Effective range in open conditions was a mile or two but almost nil in wooded country.  The more powerful Wilson set, range about 5 miles, had a separate crystal receiver, quite a refined affair, but difficult to tune quickly.  In the other box containing the transmitter the necessary sparking system was worked by a rotary interrupter, resulting in a clean high pitched note.  Altogether quite effective but very bulky and using so much current that batteries only lasted a few hours.  Effective range meant that the signals were "R7" or at least "R5", that is they could be heard clearly in sensitive headphones in a quiet place.  No-one mentioned the noise of guns during action."

In Eric's memoirs, there are also some descriptions of his experience once he got to the front but the above gives you a flavour of his technical acuity -- and his memory, when you realise that he wrote his memoirs in the early 1970s. He was a mathematics graduate but ended up in the Civil Service after the war.

73 de Martin, KB1WSY (for now)
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G3EDM

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Re: Good Call For CW
« Reply #37 on: June 29, 2021, 07:17:26 AM »

Ofcom has granted me the callsign G3EDM, my first choice. The licence has not been officially issued yet but should be soon. I won't change my eHam and QRZ sign-on until it's finalised.

73 de Martin, KB1WSY (soon to be G3EDM)
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G3EDM

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Re: Good Call For CW
« Reply #38 on: June 30, 2021, 10:11:15 AM »

The UK licence has been issued. As part of the changeover, I have asked eham to change my user name to the new callsign.

73 de Martin, G3EDM
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N5PG

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Re: Good Call For CW
« Reply #39 on: June 30, 2021, 11:28:07 AM »

Congrats on new call. Didn’t realize uk could pick calls now.

Eons ago I got to pick “Anything on this page” as I was there in person but that wasn’t the norm.

G3Exx would’ve originally been early/mid 1950s at a guess.

73
« Last Edit: June 30, 2021, 11:32:10 AM by N5PG »
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G3EDM

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Re: Good Call For CW
« Reply #40 on: June 30, 2021, 12:52:04 PM »

G3Exx would’ve originally been early/mid 1950s at a guess.

The G3EDM call was issued in June 1948 to an SK who passed away in 2014. He was an interesting fellow and I plan to put a short biography of his ham story on my future QRZ profile page.

73 de Martin, G3EDM
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N4KZ

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Re: Good Call For CW
« Reply #41 on: June 30, 2021, 05:57:24 PM »

I've had several calls in my 50-plus years. Two of those calls had the letter "e" in them. For CW I personally wouldn't have another call with "e" if I had a choice. The single dit often doesn't fare well in fading, interference, etc. Originally I had thought having an e was good for CW. Later, I changed my mind. YMMV. 73, N4KZ
« Last Edit: June 30, 2021, 06:00:03 PM by N4KZ »
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G3EDM

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Re: Good Call For CW
« Reply #42 on: July 04, 2021, 09:08:23 AM »

I am swiftly concluding revision of my Morse skills, which had become rusty after not copying any code for the past three or four years. Today I reached the letter "G" in the Koch method and so had all the elements of my new callsign in my aural and muscle memory. Only another 15 characters to go and I will have the full 40-character set (I am getting through two or three new characters per day).

I think G3EDM is a lovely call. It did not seem that way immediately, but after pounding it out a few dozen times I heard that it has a nice aural symmetry, perhaps because it starts with two dahs and ends with two dahs. A kind of rise-and-fall wave pattern. I do "get" the notion that the single dit could be an issue, but plenty of distinguished hams (including diehard contest mavens) have that letter in their call and I hope it will be just fine.

Edited to add: Upon pounding out the callsign a few more times, I realised that the harmonious pattern has something to do with the double-dahs at odd-numbered character positions in the call:

dah-dah-dit di-di-di-dah-dah dit dah-di-dit dah-dah.

(Sorry to go on about this. In my professional life I work in the music industry, so rhythmic patterns are right up my street.)

On a less fun note. My main straight key is an Ameco K-4 (clone of the J-38). But at an ARRL Convention, probably in 2014, I met Piero Begali and splurged on one his "Camelback" straight keys. Today I unpacked it for the first time since we arrived in England from the States three years ago and the tension screw had snapped in two. No idea how that happened: the key was packed in the same padded box that Piero sold it to me in. Have emailed Begali to request a replacement screw.

I've also just obtained a Vibroplex Original but will not try to use it until I've operated for a while with a straight key. That seems to be the consensus advice of bug afficionados.

73 de Martin, G3EDM
« Last Edit: July 04, 2021, 09:25:50 AM by KB1WSY »
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G3EDM

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Re: Good Call For CW
« Reply #43 on: July 05, 2021, 12:08:23 AM »

In a sleepless moment last night I fired up the receiver and heard a large number of "CQ SST" calls and QSOs that had me completely mystified. SuperSonic Transport? Also, even with my very novice CW copy skills, I was actually able to copy the QSOs in what seemed to be a contest. Over breakfast this morning I discovered that it is a regular "slow speed" CW event, defined as 20wpm or slower. Now, that is the kind of contest I can get into! I have now found more details here: http://www.k1usn.com/sst.html.

Also around the same time I heard a powerful 599 call from K2D which, upon looking it up just now, turns out to be for the Thirteen Colonies event.

This was all on 40m.

Although my little three-transistor set struggles to provide single-signal selectivity (forget it!) the nature of CW does make it possible for the brain to pick out a particular QSO despite the cacophony of other QSOs in the background.

73 de Martin, G3EDM
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NI0C

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Re: Good Call For CW
« Reply #44 on: July 05, 2021, 09:04:51 AM »

Martin,
You're beginning to enjoy ham radio at its very best-- copying signals across the pond on a set you built yourself. I like the picture of your station. BTW, I used a similar clock in my 1959 station, you can see it in a photo on my QRZ page.
Cheers & 73 de Chuck NI0C
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