Monday June 6, 2022 – Another enjoyable evening get-together on Jitsi and 40m CW. Joining in were Al VE3ALH, Phil VE3HST. Peter VE3POA, Drew VE3UIN, Howard VE3HBH, Dave VE3EAC, and Rick VE3ORY
Phil demonstrating how many amateurs still enjoy sending and receiving CW and copying the old way, with just a key, pencil, and paper…’the original digital’
Phil’s Icom IC-7300 and his Bencher paddle
At one point, I asked for the group to show us their CW keys, via Jitsi video, and was blown away when Al displayed this beautiful example of his skills as a professional machinist by trade…his straight key fabricated entirely by himself. And Al’s fist using his home-built key was equally remarkable..about as close as one can get to machine generated CW when pounding brass with a straight key. This was truly impressive!
Al’s Kenwood TS 50 built into a portable case, and a home-built battery-pack portable power supply, as explained to us during one of Al’s CW transmissions running 40 watts into his G5RV.
Drew’s straight key and his lovely old Yaesu FT-920…putting out a great signal, but having difficulty receiving with a very high local background noise level at his QTH
Howard doing a great job at his CW, with an S9 signal from north of Kingston, until the 40m band went longer during the later part of the evening
My Vibroplex Iambic paddle, running my Yaesu FTdX-3000 to my 4BTV vertical.
Near the end of the evening some of us got to showing a few of our favorite QSL cards. In his time, Phil VE3HST has clearly done some serious DXing, with confirmed contacts from exotic locations such as Market Reef, and Pitcairn Island.
Some of the ongoing correspondence received by Phil, following his contact with Pitcairn Island…just one of the fascinating aspects of this ham radio hobby.
KAREX Group 