Not yet. Still learning 12/7, but ordered a QMX+ built with Case, GPS, Dev board(hoping to get in around 3 months in December. I had not thought of hunting with my 7300 and the app while I wait for it. It sounds obvious to try it after your video.
@@PaulK7VIQ Definitely print out the cheat sheet and give hunting a try. Turn off Break-In on your radio so you can hear yourself without transmitting. Practice sending your call and the short hunter exchange for practice! You'll be hooked in no time!! That's what got us started quickly on the air and we both enjoy hunting from the house when we can. 73, Becky es Mike
@@arnasundraitisLY7K That's great you're on the air with CW and you'll probably find POTA a lot of fun and be hooked if you give it a try! Then pretty soon you'll be at a park activating 🤣 73, Becky es Mike
Thank you so much! POTA is how we really got started and hope our fun helps inspire others to get out there on the air too (mistakes and all) 😊 73, Becky es Mike
It’s not just that you’re out there playing radio, it’s the fact that, as couple, you’re out there having fun together which is the important part! Thanks for the great vids, keep’’em coming. New Sub. 72
Thanks for coming along on our adventures. We love sharing this fun hobby together and are having a great time sharing it and hoping to get others out there too! Appreciate the encouragement from you and everyone else in this great ham community! 73, Becky es Mike
Thanks so much for promoting CW. Just back from a tent camping trip in the UP of Michigan and 3 day part time POTA activation from our tent running my QCX-mini rigs (216 CW contacts made). Scheduled my activation which was a life saver due to no cell service and thanks for covering that subject in your video. Really enjoy watching your POTA activation videos and Becky is doing an amazing job on her CW. 73, Don wd8dsb
Wow, that sounds like an amazing time and congrats on so many contacts and especially QRP!!! Thanks for the comment and glad you enjoy POTA as much as we do! 73, Becky es Mike
Thank you so much for this comment! This is the main reason we share our journey and we love to hear you are excited about starting yours. Good luck on your test and hope to catch you on the air soon!! 73, Becky es Mike
Hi Mike and Becky!!! This was a great idea.. showing BOTH sides of the exchange and role play!! Awesome. The best tip (for me) is the cheat sheet. I still use one. I get panicky sometimes and the cheat sheet helps me get my brain back in the game!!!
Hi Becky and Mike. I passed my Foundation licence earlier this year and have been practicing CW every since with the hope of joining in with the POTA fun. Feeling like I'm getting close now, so I'll maybe catch you on the air soon. Thanks for the very helpful and encouraging video. 73s Al
Y'all! I love the way in your exchange scenario that you first talked through, and then sent the exchange. Bravo! Thanks for sharing. See you out there. 73 de Bill
So glad I found your videos! Thank you sincerely, I’m just getting into CW & QRP POTA and your videos are so helpful & encouraging… appreciate you both. Really hope to see you at Hamvention this year! 73 Glenn WI8O
Thank you for joining us! We are really having a fun time learning CW and just getting out there on the air. Hope to catch you one the air sometime and we haven't decided on Hamvention yet but for sure will be at Hamfest again! 73, Becky es Mike
"of course you want to pick cw cause that is the best mode" 😂 Well said, Mike. Awesome video. This would have really helped me when I was trying to learn about POTA for the first time. Thanks Becky and Mike for hunting my activation today. 72 from KM3STU
@@newsjunkie3000 😉 when we are planning the video, that's exactly what we are thinking. We were trying to make the video that we wish we had when we were learning about pota the first time. There's already a lot of great videos about pota, but we wanted to want make one specifically geared towards CW. Looking forward to the next time we get you in the logs, and I'm sure we're going to shout "it's Stu!!" when we do 😂 73 Mike N4FFF es Becky N4BKY
Thanks Jim! Glad to have you along and excited to hear you are learning CW. It's definitely a journey with challenges and rewards all at the same time 😊 Hope to hear you on the air soon! 73, Becky es Mike
That's a wonderful video with all the basics to get a person going--as a Hunter or as an Activator! Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and encouragement. 73/73, David W4QDV
Excellent video Ham Radio Duo. I love it. How much easier could you make it to get on the air. What a great explanation of a first POTA activation. You make me want to get on the air. Thank you for sharing. 😃👍 Keep them coming.
Retired and setting back up after a 28 year hiatus. I was looking for something other than a computer, a monitor, waterfalls and digital contacts. Helpful and encouraging video - Thanks. N4SHO
Thanks for the comment. CW has been so much fun and the learning journey is an amazing and rewarding challenge for us. Hope to hear you on the air sometime! 73, Becky es Mike
CW is a lot of fun and good luck learning. We are always learning and practicing nearly everyday even if just a little. We both love the little CW Morse Key. It was a gift to Becky the day she passed her technician exam. It is definitely great to take portable and the only downside which is also a positive, is that it is so lightweight you have to hold it down while sending whereas larger metal keys have bases or built in weight to give them stability. Becky still prefers it over some other keys we have. 73, Becky es Mike
Thanks T.O. Not being hesitant to send repeat ??'s definitely takes the stress off. Everyone wants to make the contact so having patience on both ends makes a big difference. Neither side really knows what the other person might be hearing (or not hearing) when trying make contact. Let us know when we should listen for your CQ on CW😊!!! 73, Becky es Mike
Thanks for the video of how to use PODA. I’m still learning cw but struggling on my own so I think I need to join Long Island cw club. Keep up the great videos Mervyn G8XPD.
LICW is great! We joined about a month ago and sampled some classes. Everyone involved seemed very patient and nice. They have so many classes and people to connect with to help. I don't know what the perfect answer is, but I suspect that it's liike a lot of things in live and doing a little bit of something every day, while still having fun, is the trick. We are currently in a class from cwinnovations.net/. The founder Glenn really is a fantastic teacher and really knows his stuff. Every time I saw him on a youtube video, what he explained always resonated with me. I believe that they are focused on several fundamentals in the best practices of learning CW. I love the fact that they focus on starting with learning the letters at 30 wpm or above. That way you learn the letters by sound. My biggest pitfall so far has been having memorized the dits and dahs, which makes it impossible to translate into letters fast enough. You may want to check out both. There seem to be fantastic people involved in these organizations to help learn CW! 73 Mike N4FFF es Becky N4BKY
Very nice guys! Subscribed. First CW activation will be today with 1930s Portable Gear at an old CCC Camp in NH. 2643. Hopefully folks hear my two tube transmitter with 3W and the two tube Regen hears them! All battery power Retro QRP CW. I have a long tine UA-cam Channel Mikrowave1.
Thank you for following us! And congratulations on the activation with some very unique gear. 3W doesn't sound like much, but we usually activate with 5W and do great! Good luck today, we will be listening for you. QRP to QRP would be fun! (just subscribed to you as well, surprised we hadn't seen you yet) 73, Becky es Mike
We tried to hear you today but no luck 😕 40m for us usually doesn't open up until the evenings. But, looked like RBN picked you up pretty far away from your location! Hope you got in your contacts and most importantly had fun on your first activation. Careful, it's a little addicting🤣 73, Becky es Mike
Great video, well done! just one thing you did not mention. Write your park number onto your log sheet. You may need it when asked in a Park 2 Park QSO and it is frustrating not having it ready.. Been there, done that. 73 de Jakob, aa0jr
That's a great idea! We've gotten bitten by that too and scrambled to find the park number in the app we used for logging. We always do a paper log also, and we really should always write the park nr on there. Thank you! 73 Mike N4FFF es Becky N4BKY
@@HOAHamRadio hey Bob! It's great to hear you've gotten the bug 😉 We have not done a video on it yet, but now I'm thinking it should be one of our next videos! We are both self-taught. We both want to be good at having conversational qsos and being able to head copy and not write everything down, so we're both currently in a course so that we make sure we're learning correctly. Until we make a video about it, here's The short version from what we've learned. My number one thing is to think about it as a journey and enjoy all the steps along the way. I first carved off a weekend thinking I was just going to check off learning CW over a weekend. By the end I was humbled 😂 I think it's kind of like being a teenager and wanting to be a rockstar and getting a guitar and expecting to be really good at playing an instrument in a weekend. Instead, if you enjoy music you enjoy getting better practicing and looking back at your accomplishments. I think it's more like that. There's plenty of steps along the way where we've had tons of fun as we're slowly getting better. My next tip would be to practice a little everyday and keep it fun. Like many things in life, it requires consistent practice. Like you, we are always very limited on time. It only takes 5 to 15 minutes here or there a few times a day. Learn the letters by sound. Whatever you use to learn, I would listen to them at 30 words per minute as you learn the letters. That forces your brain to not be able to memorize the dits and dahs. l learned the wrong way by memorizing in struggles still to turn that part of my brain off. Becky learned by sound from the start and has gone much faster. That being said, we both ended up accidentally memorizing to different degrees, and a primary focus for us right now is learning how to transition it into the subconscious. Last, a few specific suggestions on tools for learning. We both learned on an app called morsemania that's available for both iOS and Android. As long as you start off by setting the letter speed to 27-30 words per minute, or something that makes you memorize the sound of the letters instead of memorizing the map to dits and dahs, we still think it's a great way to gamify learning the letters the first time and kind of makes it fun. After we pretty much had the sound of the letters and numbers memorized with that tool, we moved into listening to words. That's a little bit of a longer story, and making a video will give us a chance to go over the long version. We were self-taught primarily because we also had very little time. The only way for us to be able to learn was to fill cracks in our day a little bit here and there. We are just now investing in being part of a class because now we're hooked and we've seen how much fun it is for us and so we put a few things aside so that we could take the class. Whatever path you take, we personally find it tons of fun. There are aspects that are very challenging, but like other things, that's the same reason why it's so fun. Just learning your first handful of letters by sound is an accomplishment. Getting to the point where you know all of them is an accomplishment. Listening to other people on the air and being able to pick out letters or States here and there is an accomplishment. I remember the first time I was listening to a UA-cam video of a pota and starting to recognize States and thinking how cool it is. I've now been able to have slow conversations and picked up the gist of all of it without writing anything down. Being able to talk to someone from 2,000 miles away, with qrp, where it is kind of like a digital mode but all the processing is going on in my own head is just so much fun! It's probably one of those things where you never finish learning, and we're still learning and enjoying it along the way! We are happy to help anyway we can and email is on QRZ. 73 Mike N4FFF es Becky N4BKY
@@HamRadioDuo Incredible feedback! Thanks a ton for putting the effort into this response. I have a lot to digest and think through. As eager as I am, I'm trying not to rush into this and get it wrong.
Sorry to hear about your surgery and hope you can recover quickly. Maybe some hunting while you rest would be fun!! 20m is a great band for POTA and we hope you can get back on the air soon. 73, Becky es Mike
I love your videos, really great work. If you come to Spain I hope to see you in Cadiz, you will be well received and we can activate POTA here. 72 and good luck
Thank you Lidi!! He's "resting" as much as he can but we had to get out and on the air again 😊 Hopefully out of his giant club splint this week! 73, Becky es Mike
Nice see a lot of Parks on the Air activity out there. We have very few here and I have no reason to complain as I have never done one! 73 de Jon, VU2JO
Great information video both. Hope the wrist it feeling better Mike after the surgery. Recently the POTA UK map has been updated and there are many parks now close by so hoping to be doing one soon. 73 Phil G0BVD
Thanks Phil! Mike is doing better and POTA therapy definitely helps. Back to the doc this week to get the giant club splint off! Nice you have some new parks to check out and hope to see you spotted at one soon! 73, Becky es Mike
Good question and excited to hear you're working on CW!!! We currently use the QCX-mini built for 20m for our portable activations. If we had to pick one band for POTA that is what we would go with. We do have a QMX on order which will allow us to try different bands and maybe find a new favorite or help when conditions change 😊 73, Becky es Mike
Thanks for the video. I'm a new ham and lately I've been thinking about taking the plunge and learning "the code". I'm pretty intimidated at the prospect of learning Morse code, but the thing that has me the most worried are the grumpy old men that get mad if I go too slow. In your experience have you encountered much of this or are people pretty understanding with new operators?
@@mavrick561we are very glad that we learned and are still learning CW! I suspect you'll find quite the opposite. Everyone who has learned CW has been there and remember starting from scratch. Everyone has been so incredibly supportive and friendly. So many people gave us offers of slowing down as much as we needed and scheduling a time to use CW so that we could practice. If you do decide to start learning, feel free to send us an email and we can give you some detailed tips that we wish we knew while learning. 73 Mike N4FFF es Becky N4BKY
Wow!!! Qué bien que promocionen el uso y aprendizaje de CW, es excelente 👏🏻 QRP CW Portable es un divertido modo de salir de casa y disfrutar. Gracias por su tiempo 👋🤝 73/72
¡Gracias! Este fue divertido y muy cercano a nuestro objetivo de conseguir más operadores de CW en el aire. ¡Nos encanta combinar el aire libre con CW! ¡Gracias por apoyarnos! 73/72, Becky es Mike (Thank you! This one was fun and near and dear to our goal to get more CW operators on the air. We love combining the outdoors and CW! Thanks for supporting us! 73, Becky es Mike)
Great informative video. We have a lot in common. Love POTA, Love Auburn (Class of 69), love your furniture- own the same stuff- Ethan Allan. War Eagle
War Eagle! We have one kid that graduated from AU and one is a senior there this year! And funny how that furniture is all over the place. You're not the first to mention it as familiar🤣 73, and thanks for watching! Becky es Mike
@@FrogRunner4x4 Great question! The short answer is that we're still learning, but it's been way more fun with many accomplishments along the way than expected. If you think it would be neat to know CW, we would encourage you to just start learning and see if you think it's as much fun as we do. Mike first thought he would " learn" cw in a weekend and check that box. That was a humbling experience and recalibrated him. It's more like learning piano or a musical instrument. There's a whole lot of related skills and a lot to master, but if you enjoy it, all the practice and learning and accomplishing along the way is a ton of fun. Becky learned the basics much faster, and learning the better way. She's probably on the extreme side of learning fast. Even before you know enough to have conversations with CW, you'll be able to have fun on the air with things like pota. The short version of our advice would be to not memorize the dits and dahs for the letters. That's what Michael did to start with and it still gives him troubles. Instead, learn the sound of the letters only by learning the sound of the letters at 30 words per minute. Starting off that might sound wild, but it's fast enough to hear the letter as a complete sound and memorizing the sound. There's an app for both ios and Android called morsemania. You can set it to 30 words per minute for the speed of the letter sound. It will teach you the letters a couple at a time and quiz you as you go along. We think that's a great way to initially learn the sound of all the letters. We found that it's best to do the learning when you're not tired and in short bursts of time, to keep it fun and not frustrating the whole time. After that, there's lots of different paths you can take. The fantastic thing is there's so many very passionate CW people willing to help. 73 Mike N4FFF es Becky N4BKY
Thank you! There is so much information out there about POTA and we wanted to focus on helping the CW operators feel more comfortable with giving it a try!!
Good question. 72 has the same meaning as 73, but is a quick way to let the operator know you are running QRP or low power (5 watts or less) which is generally our setup. It's fun to activate and hear someone else send back 72 knowing we are both low power and sometimes from great distances!! 73/72 😊 Becky es Mike
Becky and Mike great video. I am trying to learn CW myself and knowing what to expect in the exchange makes it easier to copy and send! 73 George KB3WAQ
Thank you for the feedback! Super glad to hear it was helpful. Using the cheat sheet to practice sending the exchange was really helpful for us when we started! Hope to hear you on the air! 73, Becky es Mike
@@johndigiovanni thank you for the feedback! We were hoping that it would come across as it did in our heads. We're hoping that by actually being in both locations it would help demonstrate it well. Hope to hear you on the air! 73 Mike N4FFF es Becky
Michel & Becky - I worked y'all on a Florida beach from West Texas. I really ought to send y'all a QSL card. If y'all are getting collection of QSL cards, it would be good for y'all to make a video showing QSL cards you have received. 73 de K5AVJ, Lynn PS. I enjoy all of your videos.
Thank you Lynn! We remember the contact! That would be a neat idea for a video and we definitely will send a QSL card back if we get one. 73, Becky es Mike
Have you done POTA with CW?
I worked 'em on CW, & they were QRP on a FL beach. de K5AVJ
Not yet. Still learning 12/7, but ordered a QMX+ built with Case, GPS, Dev board(hoping to get in around 3 months in December. I had not thought of hunting with my 7300 and the app while I wait for it. It sounds obvious to try it after your video.
Never done POTA myself. It sounds fun :) But I do a lot of CW contesting :) CW is fun
@@PaulK7VIQ Definitely print out the cheat sheet and give hunting a try. Turn off Break-In on your radio so you can hear yourself without transmitting. Practice sending your call and the short hunter exchange for practice! You'll be hooked in no time!! That's what got us started quickly on the air and we both enjoy hunting from the house when we can. 73, Becky es Mike
@@arnasundraitisLY7K That's great you're on the air with CW and you'll probably find POTA a lot of fun and be hooked if you give it a try! Then pretty soon you'll be at a park activating 🤣 73, Becky es Mike
I stumbled onto your cheat sheet before seeing this video, and used it for my first CW activation-thanks! 72
Congratulations on your first activation!!! Now you’re going to be hooked 🤣. 73 Becky es Mike
Cool to see a couple enjoying an activity together.
Thank you! We really enjoy the hobby and it's great to be learning and having fun together with it! 73, Becky es Mike
Great video guys, well done! POTA is a fantastic way for new CW operators to get on the air!
Thank you so much! POTA is how we really got started and hope our fun helps inspire others to get out there on the air too (mistakes and all) 😊 73, Becky es Mike
Fantastic video, Becky and Mike! Great explanations and tips.
POTA on! ❤
Thank you Shantel!! Appreciate your support as always. POTA on! 😊 73, Becky es Mike
It’s not just that you’re out there playing radio, it’s the fact that, as couple, you’re out there having fun together which is the important part! Thanks for the great vids, keep’’em coming. New Sub. 72
Thanks for coming along on our adventures. We love sharing this fun hobby together and are having a great time sharing it and hoping to get others out there too! Appreciate the encouragement from you and everyone else in this great ham community! 73, Becky es Mike
Thanks so much for promoting CW. Just back from a tent camping trip in the UP of Michigan and 3 day part time POTA activation from our tent running my QCX-mini rigs (216 CW contacts made). Scheduled my activation which was a life saver due to no cell service and thanks for covering that subject in your video. Really enjoy watching your POTA activation videos and Becky is doing an amazing job on her CW. 73, Don wd8dsb
Wow, that sounds like an amazing time and congrats on so many contacts and especially QRP!!! Thanks for the comment and glad you enjoy POTA as much as we do! 73, Becky es Mike
Hi, found your POTA videos and love them! I am studying for my license now. This is the first task that I plan to do thanks to you guys.
Thank you so much for this comment! This is the main reason we share our journey and we love to hear you are excited about starting yours. Good luck on your test and hope to catch you on the air soon!! 73, Becky es Mike
Becky, Michael - this video should be required watching for any CW course. Well done! Thanks for sharing it with us. vy 73!
Vince! Thank you for the kind words and great to hear from you. We love your content and contribution to the CW community! 73, Becky es Mike
Well done team. Subbed!
Thank you so much and welcome aboard 😊 73, Becky es Mike
Hi Mike and Becky!!! This was a great idea.. showing BOTH sides of the exchange and role play!! Awesome.
The best tip (for me) is the cheat sheet. I still use one. I get panicky sometimes and the cheat sheet helps me get my brain back in the game!!!
Thank you! It was fun to make and we definitely used a cheat sheet for a long time. Good idea to keep one handy! 73, Becky es Mike
Hi Becky and Mike. I passed my Foundation licence earlier this year and have been practicing CW every since with the hope of joining in with the POTA fun. Feeling like I'm getting close now, so I'll maybe catch you on the air soon.
Thanks for the very helpful and encouraging video.
73s
Al
@@knucker4931 Congratulations!!! 🎉 Now it's time to get on the air! Hope to hear you soon as well! 73, Becky es Mike
Y'all! I love the way in your exchange scenario that you first talked through, and then sent the exchange. Bravo! Thanks for sharing. See you out there. 73 de Bill
Thank you Bill! Appreciate your feedback and hope to catch you on the air sometime! 73, Becky es Mike
very helpful video.thanks for sharing
Thanks for watching! It was fun to make and hope it helps get people on the air! 73, Becky es Mike
Thank you for the great video. I am learning a lot.
Thanks for joining and hope to hear you on the air! 73, Becky es Mike
Great video!
Thank you so much! 73, Becky es Mike
Very helpful, I'm new to this and working hard to get better at CW.
Glad it was helpful. Learning CW is definitely a journey and each step is fun and rewarding. 73, Becky es Mike
So glad I found your videos! Thank you sincerely, I’m just getting into CW & QRP POTA and your videos are so helpful & encouraging… appreciate you both. Really hope to see you at Hamvention this year! 73 Glenn WI8O
Thank you for joining us! We are really having a fun time learning CW and just getting out there on the air. Hope to catch you one the air sometime and we haven't decided on Hamvention yet but for sure will be at Hamfest again! 73, Becky es Mike
"of course you want to pick cw cause that is the best mode" 😂 Well said, Mike. Awesome video. This would have really helped me when I was trying to learn about POTA for the first time. Thanks Becky and Mike for hunting my activation today. 72 from KM3STU
@@newsjunkie3000 😉 when we are planning the video, that's exactly what we are thinking. We were trying to make the video that we wish we had when we were learning about pota the first time. There's already a lot of great videos about pota, but we wanted to want make one specifically geared towards CW. Looking forward to the next time we get you in the logs, and I'm sure we're going to shout "it's Stu!!" when we do 😂 73 Mike N4FFF es Becky N4BKY
Thank you so much for this video.
@@MZEBLUE thank you for saying and we're happy it's useful! 73 Mike N4FFF es Becky N4BKY
New subscriber, learning CW right now with LICW
Thanks Jim! Glad to have you along and excited to hear you are learning CW. It's definitely a journey with challenges and rewards all at the same time 😊 Hope to hear you on the air soon! 73, Becky es Mike
@HamRadioDuo so far, 6 weeks in and it's very challenging, but I don't give up. Have fun and loosing my mind at the same time ;)
That's a wonderful video with all the basics to get a person going--as a Hunter or as an Activator! Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and encouragement.
73/73,
David W4QDV
Dave, what great feedback! That's very kind of you to say and perfect validation as that was our goal in making it! 73 Mike N4FFF es Becky N4BKY
Excellent video Ham Radio Duo. I love it. How much easier could you make it to get on the air. What a great explanation of a first POTA activation. You make me want to get on the air. Thank you for sharing. 😃👍 Keep them coming.
Thank you for the feedback! Our goal is just that .. inspire others to get on the air, so we appreciate hearing that! 73, Becky es Mike
Retired and setting back up after a 28 year hiatus. I was looking for something other than a computer, a monitor, waterfalls and digital contacts. Helpful and encouraging video - Thanks. N4SHO
Thanks for the comment. CW has been so much fun and the learning journey is an amazing and rewarding challenge for us. Hope to hear you on the air sometime! 73, Becky es Mike
Thanks for sharing. Looks simple enough, once you learn CW. Looking to get on CW by Jan 25. How do you like the CW Morse key?
CW is a lot of fun and good luck learning. We are always learning and practicing nearly everyday even if just a little. We both love the little CW Morse Key. It was a gift to Becky the day she passed her technician exam. It is definitely great to take portable and the only downside which is also a positive, is that it is so lightweight you have to hold it down while sending whereas larger metal keys have bases or built in weight to give them stability. Becky still prefers it over some other keys we have. 73, Becky es Mike
Subscribed and inspired thank you!
Wow, thanks for joining us! Inspiring others to get on the air and have fun is why we started sharing. 73, Becky es Mike
..--.. is your BEST FRIEND, thanks for sharing!
Thanks T.O. Not being hesitant to send repeat ??'s definitely takes the stress off. Everyone wants to make the contact so having patience on both ends makes a big difference. Neither side really knows what the other person might be hearing (or not hearing) when trying make contact. Let us know when we should listen for your CQ on CW😊!!! 73, Becky es Mike
Very well done video tnx
Thank you for joining us! 73, Becky es Mike
Thanks for the video of how to use PODA. I’m still learning cw but struggling on my own so I think I need to join Long Island cw club.
Keep up the great videos
Mervyn G8XPD.
LICW is great! We joined about a month ago and sampled some classes. Everyone involved seemed very patient and nice. They have so many classes and people to connect with to help.
I don't know what the perfect answer is, but I suspect that it's liike a lot of things in live and doing a little bit of something every day, while still having fun, is the trick.
We are currently in a class from cwinnovations.net/. The founder Glenn really is a fantastic teacher and really knows his stuff. Every time I saw him on a youtube video, what he explained always resonated with me. I believe that they are focused on several fundamentals in the best practices of learning CW. I love the fact that they focus on starting with learning the letters at 30 wpm or above. That way you learn the letters by sound. My biggest pitfall so far has been having memorized the dits and dahs, which makes it impossible to translate into letters fast enough.
You may want to check out both. There seem to be fantastic people involved in these organizations to help learn CW!
73 Mike N4FFF es Becky N4BKY
Very nice guys! Subscribed. First CW activation will be today with 1930s Portable Gear at an old CCC Camp in NH. 2643. Hopefully folks hear my two tube transmitter with 3W and the two tube Regen hears them! All battery power Retro QRP CW. I have a long tine UA-cam Channel Mikrowave1.
Thank you for following us! And congratulations on the activation with some very unique gear. 3W doesn't sound like much, but we usually activate with 5W and do great! Good luck today, we will be listening for you. QRP to QRP would be fun! (just subscribed to you as well, surprised we hadn't seen you yet) 73, Becky es Mike
@HamRadioDuo Well when my 1926 design single wire feed off center fed Hertz (OCFH) antenna gets a hold of 3 Watts - look out! Hee.
We tried to hear you today but no luck 😕 40m for us usually doesn't open up until the evenings. But, looked like RBN picked you up pretty far away from your location! Hope you got in your contacts and most importantly had fun on your first activation. Careful, it's a little addicting🤣 73, Becky es Mike
Thanks a lot. That is very helpful!
Thank you for watching and the feedback! It was fun to make and hope it helps get more CW operators on the air! 73, Becky es Mike
Yall are cute together. Thanks for the great content!
Awww thank you so much! We are very fortunate to share the hobby and have a great time together. 73, Becky es Mike
Well done!
Thank you Scott and congrats again on getting out there and activating!! 73, Becky es Mike
Great video, well done! just one thing you did not mention. Write your park number onto your log sheet. You may need it when asked in a Park 2 Park QSO and it is frustrating not having it ready.. Been there, done that. 73 de Jakob, aa0jr
That's a great idea! We've gotten bitten by that too and scrambled to find the park number in the app we used for logging. We always do a paper log also, and we really should always write the park nr on there. Thank you! 73 Mike N4FFF es Becky N4BKY
Have you done a video on how you learned CW? I've gotten the bug and want to start learning but am so limited on time. Curious if you are self taught?
@@HOAHamRadio hey Bob! It's great to hear you've gotten the bug 😉
We have not done a video on it yet, but now I'm thinking it should be one of our next videos!
We are both self-taught. We both want to be good at having conversational qsos and being able to head copy and not write everything down, so we're both currently in a course so that we make sure we're learning correctly.
Until we make a video about it, here's The short version from what we've learned.
My number one thing is to think about it as a journey and enjoy all the steps along the way. I first carved off a weekend thinking I was just going to check off learning CW over a weekend. By the end I was humbled 😂 I think it's kind of like being a teenager and wanting to be a rockstar and getting a guitar and expecting to be really good at playing an instrument in a weekend. Instead, if you enjoy music you enjoy getting better practicing and looking back at your accomplishments. I think it's more like that. There's plenty of steps along the way where we've had tons of fun as we're slowly getting better.
My next tip would be to practice a little everyday and keep it fun. Like many things in life, it requires consistent practice. Like you, we are always very limited on time. It only takes 5 to 15 minutes here or there a few times a day.
Learn the letters by sound. Whatever you use to learn, I would listen to them at 30 words per minute as you learn the letters. That forces your brain to not be able to memorize the dits and dahs. l learned the wrong way by memorizing in struggles still to turn that part of my brain off. Becky learned by sound from the start and has gone much faster. That being said, we both ended up accidentally memorizing to different degrees, and a primary focus for us right now is learning how to transition it into the subconscious.
Last, a few specific suggestions on tools for learning. We both learned on an app called morsemania that's available for both iOS and Android. As long as you start off by setting the letter speed to 27-30 words per minute, or something that makes you memorize the sound of the letters instead of memorizing the map to dits and dahs, we still think it's a great way to gamify learning the letters the first time and kind of makes it fun. After we pretty much had the sound of the letters and numbers memorized with that tool, we moved into listening to words. That's a little bit of a longer story, and making a video will give us a chance to go over the long version.
We were self-taught primarily because we also had very little time. The only way for us to be able to learn was to fill cracks in our day a little bit here and there. We are just now investing in being part of a class because now we're hooked and we've seen how much fun it is for us and so we put a few things aside so that we could take the class.
Whatever path you take, we personally find it tons of fun. There are aspects that are very challenging, but like other things, that's the same reason why it's so fun. Just learning your first handful of letters by sound is an accomplishment. Getting to the point where you know all of them is an accomplishment. Listening to other people on the air and being able to pick out letters or States here and there is an accomplishment. I remember the first time I was listening to a UA-cam video of a pota and starting to recognize States and thinking how cool it is. I've now been able to have slow conversations and picked up the gist of all of it without writing anything down. Being able to talk to someone from 2,000 miles away, with qrp, where it is kind of like a digital mode but all the processing is going on in my own head is just so much fun! It's probably one of those things where you never finish learning, and we're still learning and enjoying it along the way!
We are happy to help anyway we can and email is on QRZ.
73 Mike N4FFF es Becky N4BKY
@@HamRadioDuo Incredible feedback! Thanks a ton for putting the effort into this response. I have a lot to digest and think through. As eager as I am, I'm trying not to rush into this and get it wrong.
Happy to help whenever we can so don't be afraid to reach out! 73, Becky es Mike
Not yet. I have a 20m rig and antenna. Laid up by recent surgery.
Sorry to hear about your surgery and hope you can recover quickly. Maybe some hunting while you rest would be fun!! 20m is a great band for POTA and we hope you can get back on the air soon. 73, Becky es Mike
I love your videos, really great work. If you come to Spain I hope to see you in Cadiz, you will be well received and we can activate POTA here. 72 and good luck
Thank you so much! That would be amazing to activate from another country and maybe some day we will! 73, Becky es Mike
Nice video!! Thanks
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it! 73, Becky es Mike
Love it! Mike rest that wrist HI HI.
Thank you Lidi!! He's "resting" as much as he can but we had to get out and on the air again 😊 Hopefully out of his giant club splint this week! 73, Becky es Mike
Great Video! TNX --... ...--
Thanks for watching 😊 73, Becky es Mike
Nice see a lot of Parks on the Air activity out there. We have very few here and I have no reason to complain as I have never done one! 73 de Jon, VU2JO
It is very nice to see the hobby gaining some momentum! POTA is really fun and addicting if you ever try one 😊 73, Becky es Mike
@@HamRadioDuo 73
A great video!
Thank you! It was a fun one to make 😊 73, Becky es Mike
Great information video both. Hope the wrist it feeling better Mike after the surgery. Recently the POTA UK map has been updated and there are many parks now close by so hoping to be doing one soon. 73 Phil G0BVD
Thanks Phil! Mike is doing better and POTA therapy definitely helps. Back to the doc this week to get the giant club splint off! Nice you have some new parks to check out and hope to see you spotted at one soon! 73, Becky es Mike
What qrp radio are you using? I’m going through LICW right now now
Good question and excited to hear you're working on CW!!! We currently use the QCX-mini built for 20m for our portable activations. If we had to pick one band for POTA that is what we would go with. We do have a QMX on order which will allow us to try different bands and maybe find a new favorite or help when conditions change 😊
73, Becky es Mike
Thanks for the video. I'm a new ham and lately I've been thinking about taking the plunge and learning "the code". I'm pretty intimidated at the prospect of learning Morse code, but the thing that has me the most worried are the grumpy old men that get mad if I go too slow. In your experience have you encountered much of this or are people pretty understanding with new operators?
@@mavrick561we are very glad that we learned and are still learning CW! I suspect you'll find quite the opposite. Everyone who has learned CW has been there and remember starting from scratch. Everyone has been so incredibly supportive and friendly. So many people gave us offers of slowing down as much as we needed and scheduling a time to use CW so that we could practice.
If you do decide to start learning, feel free to send us an email and we can give you some detailed tips that we wish we knew while learning. 73 Mike N4FFF es Becky N4BKY
Wow!!! Qué bien que promocionen el uso y aprendizaje de CW, es excelente 👏🏻
QRP CW Portable es un divertido modo de salir de casa y disfrutar.
Gracias por su tiempo 👋🤝
73/72
¡Gracias! Este fue divertido y muy cercano a nuestro objetivo de conseguir más operadores de CW en el aire. ¡Nos encanta combinar el aire libre con CW! ¡Gracias por apoyarnos! 73/72, Becky es Mike
(Thank you! This one was fun and near and dear to our goal to get more CW operators on the air. We love combining the outdoors and CW! Thanks for supporting us! 73, Becky es Mike)
May be worth noting that 72 is the QRP version of 73. In case anyone is curious why you're sending that instead of 73! 😂
Yes, good point! We forgot to mention the difference in this one 🙂 73 / 72 Becky es Mike
@HamRadioDuo Took me a moment! Life is too short for QRP! 🙄 I'm firmly in the 73 camp! Lol. Take care, and maybe catch you on air! George M1GEO.
Great informative video. We have a lot in common. Love POTA, Love Auburn (Class of 69), love your furniture- own the same stuff- Ethan Allan. War Eagle
War Eagle! We have one kid that graduated from AU and one is a senior there this year! And funny how that furniture is all over the place. You're not the first to mention it as familiar🤣 73, and thanks for watching! Becky es Mike
How did y’all learn CW? How long did it take to learn?
@@FrogRunner4x4 Great question! The short answer is that we're still learning, but it's been way more fun with many accomplishments along the way than expected. If you think it would be neat to know CW, we would encourage you to just start learning and see if you think it's as much fun as we do.
Mike first thought he would " learn" cw in a weekend and check that box. That was a humbling experience and recalibrated him. It's more like learning piano or a musical instrument. There's a whole lot of related skills and a lot to master, but if you enjoy it, all the practice and learning and accomplishing along the way is a ton of fun.
Becky learned the basics much faster, and learning the better way. She's probably on the extreme side of learning fast.
Even before you know enough to have conversations with CW, you'll be able to have fun on the air with things like pota.
The short version of our advice would be to not memorize the dits and dahs for the letters. That's what Michael did to start with and it still gives him troubles. Instead, learn the sound of the letters only by learning the sound of the letters at 30 words per minute. Starting off that might sound wild, but it's fast enough to hear the letter as a complete sound and memorizing the sound. There's an app for both ios and Android called morsemania. You can set it to 30 words per minute for the speed of the letter sound. It will teach you the letters a couple at a time and quiz you as you go along. We think that's a great way to initially learn the sound of all the letters. We found that it's best to do the learning when you're not tired and in short bursts of time, to keep it fun and not frustrating the whole time.
After that, there's lots of different paths you can take. The fantastic thing is there's so many very passionate CW people willing to help.
73 Mike N4FFF es Becky N4BKY
PSHT!! :D
🤣
Are you guys in Tennessee…if so I’m north of ya in Kentucky…
KQ4KDR
We are in North Alabama but travel up into TN quite a bit! Thanks for watching 😊 73, Becky es Mike
Wonderfull.. Ty very much. 73 de Ta2bku
Thank you! Getting on the air with CW POTA is so much fun! 73, Becky es Mike
Great how to & tips for activating and hunting POTA! 73, KF4LMZ
Thank you! There is so much information out there about POTA and we wanted to focus on helping the CW operators feel more comfortable with giving it a try!!
72? Don’t you mean 73?
Good question. 72 has the same meaning as 73, but is a quick way to let the operator know you are running QRP or low power (5 watts or less) which is generally our setup. It's fun to activate and hear someone else send back 72 knowing we are both low power and sometimes from great distances!! 73/72 😊 Becky es Mike
Becky and Mike great video. I am trying to learn CW myself and knowing what to expect in the exchange makes it easier to copy and send! 73 George KB3WAQ
Thank you for the feedback! Super glad to hear it was helpful. Using the cheat sheet to practice sending the exchange was really helpful for us when we started! Hope to hear you on the air! 73, Becky es Mike
New Sub! DV1MG🇵🇭
Thanks so much for joining our adventures!!! 73, Becky es Mike
great video you two - de K8MH
Thank you Marc! It was fun to make and hope it helps more CW operators to get on the air! 73, Becky es Mike
Awesome! Absolutely wonderful! Best 73 G0HDA
Thank you! This was near and dear to us to make and hope it helps inspire others to get on the air from a park or anywhere! 73, Becky es Mike
Very good video. Very informative with the example you both did for the exchange. 73 de N3LUD
@@johndigiovanni thank you for the feedback! We were hoping that it would come across as it did in our heads. We're hoping that by actually being in both locations it would help demonstrate it well. Hope to hear you on the air! 73 Mike N4FFF es Becky
Michel & Becky - I worked y'all on a Florida beach from West Texas. I really ought to send y'all a QSL card. If y'all are getting collection of QSL cards, it would be good for y'all to make a video showing QSL cards you have received. 73 de K5AVJ, Lynn
PS. I enjoy all of your videos.
Thank you Lynn! We remember the contact! That would be a neat idea for a video and we definitely will send a QSL card back if we get one. 73, Becky es Mike