My mom signed me up for violin lessons when I was about 7 or 8. I hated it and
quit shortly after. In hindsight (20-20) I wish I would have stayed with it. In
high school a friend was a drummer in the band. He wanted to take up sax but
the *hole director wouldn't let him because he needed drummers for the marching
band. My buddy convinced me to become a drummer so he could take up sax. Of
course, you don't need to read much music to play snare drum in a marching band
so my skill was limited. although I did play timpani in the orchestra so I read
(past tense) a little.
I was interested in radio even before high school so when I got there I met a
guy who had been a (lapsed) Novice and learned a little more about it. We
formed a radio club and since the principal was a Lt. Cmdr in the Navy reserve
and CO of the local center, the faculty advisor was able to tape record the
Navy's code practice records. The club would meet only once a week to practice
code. Needless to say this wasn't often enough and we would start from the
beginning meeting after meeting. I grew tired of this and wound up learning the
code by sight from my 1954 Boy Scout Handbook (I still have it). As a
consequence I never became proficient. I took my Novice and then Conditional
exams from a neighbor (W7UVR sk).
All was good for some time. I became interested in weak signal VHF work and got
into 2-meter tropo and meteor scatter. Schedules were set up on the Central
States VHF Society net on the high end of 75-meters. At some point it was
decided for QRM reasons to relocate the net to the Advanced Class part of the
band. Uh oh, "incentive licensing" reared its head and I needed to upgrade.
The next time the RI came to town I was ready to take the Advanced exam. Since
I had credit for 13 WPM already I didn't have to take the code test and didn't
practice. After passing the exam I asked the examiner whether I could try the
Extra. He said, sure sit over there, the test will start in a few minutes.
When the test began I completely choked. I wadded up my paper and threw it in
the trash. The examiner said that he needed to see it anyway. He was very kind
and said something like, "I'm afraid I can't get much out of this." I was
humiliated and vowed to pass the exam the next time the FCC came to town., which
I did.
But I'm still neither a musician or a fast CW man.
Wes N7WS
On 3/1/2015 3:22 PM, Edward R Cole wrote:
I played in the school band from 5th grade thru 12th (played clarinet and
oboe). I was member of the church choir. I play classical guitar...and never
got better than 12wpm copying CW. But my musical background likely made
sending easy (18-20wpm with straight key).
So goes another "urban myth". Of course if I could have held my Novice longer
than one year that might have helped vs getting a tech license and being
banned to 6m-up which was mainly AM way back then.
More likely was due to my initial interest in voice vs CW. After three years
of failed CW exams at the FCC office (long before VE program or multiple-guess
code tests - one minute perfect copy of five character groups of random
text/punctuation/numbers). We lived 5 miles too close to take the Conditional
license.
But I passed in 1982 (24-years later) before the FCC at the Anchorage Office
because I wanted to go out on the Iditarod Trail as a ham radio checkpoint
volunteer. Comms were on 80/40m SSB so you had to have a General License. CW
test made much easier to pass in 1982 with real text and multiple-choice
testing on content. I also took and passed my Advanced in same sitting.
Passed Extra in 2000 when code requirement was dropped to 13wpm.
73, Ed - KL7UW
http://www.kl7uw.com
"Kits made by KL7UW"
Dubus Mag business:
[email protected]
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