DELARANEWS

Club News

January 1 in the park

I wasn't sure how today would turn out at all. Didn't feel well, no sleep, and my cat is mad at me. But I still decided to venture to the park for some SSB therapy. Lets see, I forgot my log book, forgot my measurements for the 20M wire, forgot my hot cocoa, my ink pen died on me. I still had 40M to work, had extra pens in the glove box and junk mail paper on the floorboard. Take that Karma. Got my wire up quicker than normal. No limb nearly hit me today. The invert V spread set up easily. My new camp chair was perfectly matched to my trunk. I made contacts. What did I learn, those extra pens always come in handy, that trash on my floorboard is good for something, extra clothing and a quilt work well for warmth in absence of something hot to drink ( well, sometimes ) and what ever your equipment is, its better than nothing. Hollering doesn't work well. I had a blast even though it was cloudy, cold and drizzling something wet on me. What a nice day to start off 2019. KE8JLG Jamie

Another path to CW!

Dale’s gracious offer to stage a DELARA CW Class is excellent! There has been another similar class, with a DELARA connection. Prez. Joe fills us in on that:

I have been involved as an advisor for a couple of years in CWops’s CW Academy. I was recently appointed to be a co- manager for the program along with a YL in 6-land. They have used a minimum of 20 WPM since the beginning (about 10 years ago) because they want students to hear each character as a unique, distinct sound. Notice I used the singular; characters are not composed of other sounds but each one has its own sound. That can be hard for students with prior experience to get over and they are sometimes shocked when they are struggling and I tell them to practice at 25 WPM. They have to get over counting and learn to hear the unique sounds. For me, I could not really get past the urge to count until I got to 28 WPM. I try to ban the use of the D-words (dits and dahs).

We have a young member of DELARA who is signed up for the Level 1 beginners class. I will be advising two classes starting next week. We meet twice a week for 8 weeks. It is a fast-paced program but we have had hundreds of students go through it and learn Morse code. I’m seeing a lot who learn Morse code then go to parks or other outside locations and make a few CW contacts and marvel at how fun it is. So I thank Dale for wanting to share this unique and fun mode and I hope that whoever takes Dale’s class works hard and ends up making their own CW contacts. We even have a station where you can do that. It is a thrill. If you would like to try the CW Academy program, please go to the link above and sign up. Since I’m now involved with scheduling, I might just be able to make sure that you get into the next available class. TU es 73 de Joe AA8TA

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