Tonight's sked...

[Brett Miller]

I tried to BK into the CFO sked tonight but it seemed like I wasn't heard...probably due to the excessive SSB qrm (as well as some RTTY) on top of the QRG. 

I tuned in at 8:00pm Eastern and heard Andrew start a long monologue and afterward tried to break in.  I hope I did not step on anyone to who's signal I did not have a good path.  If so, I apologize.  In any case, I tried breaking at a few more tactical moments (in between turns in the roundtable), but perhaps my 50 watts wasn't enough to compete with the very strong interfering sigs.  I remember hearing Ben and Andrew talk about the QRM, so I know I wasn't the only one affected.  Later I heard Joe come back in, but as the band continued to deteriorate, I QSY'd from the HF rig in order to persue more productive tasks around the house.

Sorry I missed a chance to talk to the greatest bunch of ops around, and I will see you guys next week (space weather and QRM permitting).  73!

-Brett  (KI4DBK)

CFO#1017

[Andrew Moore]

Thanks for the attempt, we're just signing off, will let them know you put the effort in!

73

Andrew

NV1B

..

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[Jerry Brainard]

Hey, in the old days of the CFO, we didn’t get on the phone or on the internet to schedule a conversation, or explain why we couldn’t copy because of QRM, QSB or anything else.   We just tuned in around 7.030 Kc and started yakking.  I don’t recall that SSB QRM was ever a problem on the bottom end of 40.  We’d start off around 70 WPM and go up to 80 or more from there.  If slower ops would come in we would slow down a bit.  They were all a great bunch of guys.  Most that I knew are SKs today.  Very sad for me!  We didn’t have a “round table”.  We just talked to each other.  Sorry you missed those days Brett.

 

73,

 

Jerry K9JB, ex WW6C, K8KHS es KN8KHS

--

[Brett Miller]

Rather than talking about how great the good ol' days were, we ought (in my humble opinion) to be working to bring that tradition back as current members of the CFO.  Right now John (k0jvx) and myself are continuing that tradition on our own Sunday sked, where we practice full QSK (no id each time and no BK...we just pause and the other op joins in, or breaks with a dit or two), and only id where required by law.  I can send with a keyboard easily up to 70 wpm and up to 105 with practice (as I've done in the past), however, as my receiving speed is only up to about 50-55 on a good day, I feel I need more one on one practice prior to joining in a huge full break in sked with tons of ops talking at once.  I'll be ready in a year or two if John and I can keep up, I promise.  But  yes, I am *real* sorry I missed those days Jerry. 

I still want to support the guys who get on 7.106 every Tuesday.

73,

-Brett (cfo #1017, KI4DBK)

---

From: Jerry Brainard <g.bra...@charter.net>
To: chicken-fat-o...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, May 1, 2012 11:09 PM
Subject: RE: [Chicken Fat Operators-1477] Tonight's sked...

CFO Sked Page: http://www.obriensweb.com/cfosked/cfosked.php' --

[Brett Miller]

In addition, I believe (in the tradition of great operators who helped me in the past, such as Fred Ryan) that we should take advantage of every piece of technology we have available in order to encourage each other to keep skeds, maintain practice, and improve our skills.  To do less than that, I believe, will be tantamount to chipping out our own epitaph on the headstone of QRQ and QSK cw...which is already in danger.

-Brett

---

From: Brett Miller <ki4...@yahoo.com>
To: "chicken-fat-o...@googlegroups.com" <chicken-fat-o...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 1, 2012 11:36 PM
Subject: Re: [Chicken Fat Operators-1478] Tonight's sked...

[Richard]

De VE3MFN, I tuned in briefly on sked for the net BUT the QRM was horrendous up here as was the QRN.  I wonder if it might be practical to move the QRG down into the 7032-7040 range again as it once was......For Brett, if you can copy 50-55 wpm there is no reason to exclude yourself from involvement in the net---------I notice that most members are going conciderably slower than that, which may be wise considering conditions some nights........For anyone interested, I do some, almost daily, early afternoon operating on 7033+/- so if you're a semi pro loafer like I or just on a lunch break look around for me there.  If someone is interested in a casual mid evening sked on 40m let me know and I'd be happy to do some ragchewing condx permitting......

 

 

--...  ...--

 

Rick.

From: Brett Miller <ki4...@yahoo.com>
To: "chicken-fat-o...@googlegroups.com" <chicken-fat-o...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 1, 2012 11:36:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Chicken Fat Operators-1478] Tonight's sked...

Rather than talking about how great the good ol' days were, we ought (in my humble opinion) to be working to bring that tradition back as current members of the CFO.  Right now John (k0jvx) and myself are continuing that tradition on our own Sunday sked, where we practice full QSK (no id each time and no BK...we just pause and the other op joins in, or breaks with a dit or two), and only id where required by law.  I can send with a keyboard easily up to 70 wpm and up to 105 with practice (as I've done in the past), however, as my receiving speed is only up to about 50-55 on a good day, I feel I need more one on one practice prior to joining in a huge full break in sked with tons of ops talking at once.  I'll be ready in a year or two if John and I can keep up, I promise.  But  yes, I am *real* sorry I missed those days Jerry. 

I still want to support the guys who get on 7.106 every Tuesday.

73,

-Brett (cfo #1017, KI4DBK)

[Brett Miller]

No, I didn't exclude myself, I just didn't feel like bearing any more QRM after 30 min, and no one was hearing my attempts to jump in a relatively low QRO levels.  Rick, I would love to do some rag chewing very soon!!

-Brett

---

From: Richard <cwm...@yahoo.ca>
To: "chicken-fat-o...@googlegroups.com" <chicken-fat-o...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 2, 2012 12:01 AM
Subject: Re: [Chicken Fat Operators-1480] Tonight's sked...

[Jerry Brainard]

Well Brett, I’m an old man and those “good ol’ days”’ mean a lot to me. Let me know the time and the QRG you and John have your Sunday sked and please let me join in.

 

73, Jerry

 

-----Original Message-----
From: chicken-fat-o...@googlegroups.com [mailto:chicken-fat-o...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Brett Miller

Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2012 8:36 PM
To: chicken-fat-o...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Chicken Fat Operators-1478] Tonight's sked...

 

Rather than talking about how great the good ol' days were, we ought (in my humble opinion) to be working to bring that tradition back as current members of the CFO.  Right now John (k0jvx) and myself are continuing that tradition on our own Sunday sked, where we practice full QSK (no id each time and no BK...we just pause and the other op joins in, or breaks with a dit or two), and only id where required by law.  I can send with a keyboard easily up to 70 wpm and up to 105 with practice (as I've done in the past), however, as my receiving speed is only up to about 50-55 on a good day, I feel I need more one on one practice prior to joining in a huge full break in sked with tons of ops talking at once.  I'll be ready in a year or two if John and I can keep up, I promise.  But  yes, I am *real* sorry I missed those days Jerry. 

[GEORGE, N9EJS]

Jerry, you must be an OM! I see your CFO #484 first appearing on
Mel's June 30, 1982 roster. I try to make the Tuesday evening sked,
but frequently am still sleeping through the 5:30p.m. evening news and
forget about it. Lot's of QRN, that's for sure.

73 - George, N9EJS, CFO #861 (1983?)

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

[Jerry Brainard]

Yep George, I'm even older that that. I was licensed in March, 1958. I was
a latecomer to the CFO. I don't know how it eluded me so long. In those
days we just got on around 7.030 whenever every night. CFO #1 Jim "Big
Bird" Ricks, W9TO had a perfect description for it. He had a very clever
way with words. I'll try to dig it up.

When you were a telegraph operator with the railroad did you use American
Morse?

[Brett Miller]

Jerry,

Those days mean a lot to me too, since by understanding CW's past, I (who will be part of CW's future) can understand how to best be a positive force for directing it into posterity.  I have the required sense of humor for membership (hell, I have a chicken on my right forearm), but I will get a bit abrasive when someone intimates inferior behavior as a QRQ operator simply because I felt like posting an email to "explain why I couldn't copy in QRM....etc."  If you read my original email carefully enough, you would have seen that I posted to explain that those guys weren't copying me as I was trying to break, not vice versa.  I, in fact, was copying just fine through QRM as I always tend to do these days.  It's not true, by the way, that people didn't discuss skeds off of the air in other forms of media in the old days.  I have a 1/2 inch thick stack of photocopies from 1975 on Bill Eitel's stationary regarding 5-Star Club 80 wpm QRQ club skeds which proves otherwise.  Highly interesting.  You may not be aware of this, but I am also an amateur CW historian. 

I will email you off list and let you know about the sked.  John wanted others to join in from the start, but as I am still a relatively new operator, I do my best receiving when I am relaxed and at ease.  I simply don't have the experience you guys have yet, but perhaps I can eventually make up for it with raw ambition.  K0JVX and I have established a very good fast back and forth break in rhythm, interrupted only when one of us occasionally goes off on a tangent and winds up in a monologue, but then we usually both use Ten-Tecs, so breaking is a simple matter of a dit or two.  When it works well though, any rig will do, since a short pause indicates turn taking.....not the traditional non-fluid "BK."  We also don't use a lot of abbreviation, we use our full vocabularies and spell out the words.  You probably understand why this is, so I won't go on about it.

Make no mistake, most of the CW operators who have been instrumental in supporting my own success in the art have been 30 or 40 years my senior, and I am nearly 40 now.  I have nothing but the utmost respect for the previous generation of telegraphers, but I won't take any chicken scat off of anyone, nor will I allow my face to be scratched, pecked or clucked loudly at in a derisive manner.  I don't believe in authority, only expertise.

If there is going to be any QRQ 10-20 years from now, I will be one of the people to maintain the inertia of the good ol' days' nostalgia, such as you read about in William Pierpont's "The Art and Skill of Radio Telegraphy", which I have read cover to cover 4 times.  If it weren't for the old stories of the great days of telegraphy on the railroads, I wouldn't be writing this letter on the CFO list now, in a group whose organizers made me carry out several successful QSOs at 45 wpm last year in order to join.  

I've said this before, but I see that it needs to be said again.  I upgraded to General Class in 2004.  During that time I went from 0 wpm to a shaky 40 wpm in 6 months.  I knew about CFO from Pierpont and often heard the cluck on the air.  Of course, when I started looking into joining I found that there was no organizer at the time and the group was not issuing numbers.  Lots of stories about the old days, but no one apparently able to overcome laziness to step up and actually make things happen.  What a sad state of affairs.  Now, in 2012, thanks to under appreciated guys like Andrew, Ben, Bob Carr, George, Joe, Chuck Vaughn, Me, Rick, Ralph, David Ring, and others, there is some activity.

Its great to be critical (if your end goal is change) but I will say that this group is certainly not what I thought it was going to be 8 years ago when I dreamed about being good enough at CW to become a member.  Clearly, romance is not everything it's cracked up to be, and action trumps it every time.  An example:  Chuck Vaughn...the most tireless advocate of QRQCW and QRQ history I have ever known with the exception of maybe W3NJZ (SK).  QRQ and in fact CW itself needs advocacy, since your very letter to me points out one of the reasons why.  When you look into the past, activity was higher and skills were greater.  I want to turn the tide and start to bring that back as close to the old standard as possible, and we need guys like you who can still remember what that standard was! hihihi.

Most sincere 73,

Brett - KI4DBK

CFO#1017

PS:  Oh, and I would like to say that taking the Rooster off of .PDF was the worst thing ever.  I vote it goes back to a downloadable form, preferably a text file, comma or tab delimited, so that a person could import it into a database or spreadsheet of his/her choice.  It should always be available in an up to date single downloadable file I can keep on my PC.  Of course, a PDF would be 2nd choice after text.

---

From: Jerry Brainard <g.bra...@charter.net>
To: chicken-fat-o...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, May 2, 2012 12:24 AM
Subject: RE: [Chicken Fat Operators-1482] Tonight's sked...

[GEORGE, N9EJS]

Yep Jerry, I learned CW as a Boy Sprout in about 1939, then became
interested in railroad telegraphy and got a job as a student operator
on May 28, 1945 at 32 cents an hour. The training operator got an
extra dime per hour - ha ha. It was of course the original Morse code
used on the railroad. I'm still proficient at it 67 years later.
There used to be a few of us hams around that used it on the air for
fun!
73 - George, N9EJS

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

[Brett Miller]

There is a DOS program called "The Mill", which had a mode that taught you American Morse.  KM4BI used to mess around with American Morse a little locally on 10m, but I am far from proficient at it.  That's something else I would like to learn later on after I have accomplished my goals with Int'l morse.

-brett

---

From: "GEORGE, N9EJS" <n9ej...@gmail.com>
To: Chicken Fat Operators Club - CFO <Chicken-Fat-O...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 2, 2012 12:34 PM
Subject: [Chicken Fat Operators-1486] Re: Tonight's sked...

> > Unsubscribe: Chicken-Fat-Operators-Club+unsub...@googlegroups.com

> > Home:http://groups.google.com/group/Chicken-Fat-Operators-Club
> > CFO Sked Page:http://www.obriensweb.com/cfosked/cfosked.php'--
> > Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, CLUCK! - CFO Lives!
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> > Post: Chicken-Fat-O...@googlegroups.com

> > Unsubscribe: Chicken-Fat-Operators-Club+unsub...@googlegroups.com

> > Home:http://groups.google.com/group/Chicken-Fat-Operators-Club
> > CFO Sked Page:http://www.obriensweb.com/cfosked/cfosked.php'
>
> > --
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>
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[Andrew Moore]

KI4DBK> ...the most tireless advocate of QRQCW and QRQ history I have ever known with the exception of maybe W3NJZ (SK).

Hold on, wait a sec, is that right?  W3NJZ SK?  When?

--Andrew, NV1B

..

[Brett Miller]

I was told he passed away on March 15 of this year.  Hearing about this was a major blow to me, but I had assumed most CFO members knew of this.

-Brett

---

From: Andrew Moore <andre...@gmail.com>
To: chicken-fat-o...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 2, 2012 8:21 PM
Subject: Re: [Chicken Fat Operators-1488] Tonight's sked...