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All of us are at one place or another in our CW journey and with each path there are up and down times. Times when things connect and other times when there is a disconnect. If you think about it this is not just CW that operates this way. When you are learning to drive one day you can parallel park like a pro and the next day you could not do it if your life depended on it. Learning the times table back in school and you are great with the 9 times table....then in class, you are asked 9x7  and you go blank. Well, going beyond ICR can be the same way. Is there something beyond ICR you ask.....by golly Miss Mollie there is! 

Learning is an adventure no matter what you are challenging yourself with. I am a firm believer that to keep the mind, body and spirit healthy you need to be challenging yourself. This brings me to the next step beyond ICR.  It is the art of words and Q codes training and it is different from  ICR. In my humble opinion, I do feel you should master ICR before you jump into word and Q code recognition.
If you have ICR pretty much happening for you the next step is instant recognition but with a twist. Your brain is very powerful and I can't emphasize this enough. Now understand when I say powerful it does not necessarily mean this next step is going to be a breeze. Remember you have trained your brain to hear a letter or a number and recognize the sound and in a split second.
Now your brain is going to hear QTH, OP, WX, RIG and so on it has been conditioned to tell you Q  T  H. Well it is time to change it up again but not to worry your brain can compartmentalize things with practice. 

How does this new adventure work you ask? Let's go in reverse for a moment and go back to when you were learning ICR. You knew dit dit dit dah sound was "V" as you hear each dit and dah but for  ICR to work that was just too slow and you would get lost and get behind. Oh, which reminds me of the art of copying behind....but that is another post.... moving from copying each dit and dah to ICR you had to speed up the sending of each letter so it was impossible for you to hear each dit and dah but a sound. Learning the sound of each letter was the key.  The brain can handle that with no problem as you know if you have a grip on  ICR. 

Words and Q codes instant recognition is the same, you have to speed things up a little but just a little. Your brain has to hear what QTH sounds like and not Q  T  H. Impossible you say...I bet we all know CQ and 73 at any speed and don't hear the ICR equivalent of each letter. Your brain will put the new word and Q codes in a new compartment in your brain. Soon you will train your brain for words and Q codes. Keep reviewing your ICR as well and in time both will blend into one compartment in your brain.  The key to word and Q code instant recognition is speed up the sending just a bit. You want to hear the sound and each letter as ICR.

As for programs for learning words and Q codes, there are many programs out there that will send you anything a different speeds. If you have mastered ICR you will be aware of some programs that worked for you and chances are they also will function as word and Q code trainers as well. Just like with ICR work with some words or Q codes and then move on to more once those are familiar and then add more. Another excellent way to learn is to also turn the power on your rig to zero and practice sending the words and Q codes you are learning. The more involved your body is in learning the easier moving ahead will be.  

If you have any questions either leave a question in the comment section or email me and my email on my blog.

As ham radio operators no matter what mode you operate one major contributing factor regarding success or failure is the Sun. Propagation reports can be found on the internet, some with cool pictures and others with just lines of data. Things such as solar flares, coronal mass ejection (CME), solar wind and the list goes on. Being able to look at propagation data and interpret it is beneficial. An understanding can help us realize that not all solar flares, CME and high solar wind can mean poor conditions. I found a great site that goes through many areas that make up a propagation report. At some points yes it can get into too much detail but overall I found it to be very informative.
Understanding propagation can be very interesting and also can help you understand the data that is shown.
Here is the LINK to a site that gives great information about propagation.

Here are some propagation sites: 

Solar Ham 

Current ham radio conditions 

My contest contacts

 This weekend was the IARU contest and you can participate in CW, SSB or both. As for me, it was CW only....surprise surprise. The solar weather can affect how radio operations in both a good way and a bad way. This weekend it was a bad way but that is ok as I tell myself the solar weather does not discriminate it treats all operators the same way. The advanced solar forecast prepared contesters for a rough ride but to add to it the Bz index, something we don't hear much about in Solar weather circles was deep in the negative direction. When you have poor solar weather and add in a -Bz index it just makes things worse. What it sounds like to a CW contester is one moment a signal is very decent and then gone and in most cases gone for some time. 

This is a challenge for contesters as when you hear a call sign, come back to them and get a report you generally have no luxury for repeats. If the anomaly happens mid-contact well you most likely cannot log the contact. I find during these conditions you have more stations contacting you more than once on the same band (called a DUPE). Because of the changing condition, you may think the station heard your exchange but they did not and may be asking you for a repeat and you can't hear them asking. So due to the poor conditions, they are not able to log your contact that you think was a solid contact. Whenever I have a station call me that has called me before and is in the log (DUPE) I  always work them again as you are not penalized for it. But there are a few that send "QSO BEFORE" and will not log the contact. 

Anyway, I digress....this year I was able to log more contacts (56) during very poor conditions compared to last year and better yet I almost doubled my score. Last year's score was 69,484 compared to 130,130 this year.  This contest starts on Saturday at 9 am local time and ends on Sunday at 9 am local time. I was up early on Sunday (5:15) to keep adding to the log. I am a morning person and up each day at 6 am so I was not too far off from my normal time.

The final results

I did a part-time effort in the Canada Day contest on the weekend. I  wanted to take it easy as I just had minor surgery and sitting in one spot for long periods hurts. The contest was from Sunday at 00:00 or 9 pm local time until 00:00 Monday. I was on and off during the day Monday and noticed the number of contesters was on the low side. I attribute this to Monday only being a holiday in Canada and most others were working. In the Canada Day contest you have the option of CW and SSB or a combination of both. As you may have guessed I was CW-only and unassisted. 

The solar forecast was predicting a Kp index maxing at 4 but the good news was the maxed at Kp2. I still found deep QSB (fading) on all bands (for me 10m-40m). I did manage to beat last year's score and total contacts. As always I found this contest more relaxed CW speed-wise, I was calling CQ in around 30wpm but dropped it to 26-28wpm. I found at times I would be calling CQ RAC for 5 or minutes without an answer. Because of this I had some web pages up on my other monitor and was doing some reading. Funny when an answer to my CQ did come back to me it would startle me out of my reading trance. 

This years score

My contacts during the contest

The old setup

As an avid contester, I find myself sitting at the radio for long periods and I am no longer a spring chicken my body is not as forgiving as it used to be. Some of the changes in the past I made were getting a proper desk chair, and making sure the monitors I look at for long periods are at eye level. Also getting up each hour and doing a little walking around also helps.
As I became more involved in my love of contesting, meaning I extended my operating times I then found other issues regarding age and repetitive moments that hindered my contesting time. To continue to enjoy my contesting adventure some changes needed to be made at the station. 

During a CW contest when your QSO count is over a thousand plus imagine how many times your baby finger hits the "enter" key on your keyboard. Let me tell you it is  TONS of times. I found some tendons in my right hand became very sore.  The problem was it did not go away after the contest it affected me for close to a month off and on. I changed it up by daily stretches for my hands, during a contest not hitting enter all the time but also using the F1 key. Both keys send "CQ TEST VE9KK" and I also added a wrist support to my keyboard and my mice for my right hand. 

Keyboard support.

During a contest many times, I would be spinning the VFO and changing RF gain to name a  few things. My radio was far back on my radio desk which meant I had to lean forward each time to play with the radio controls. After some time my back and shoulders would get very sore. Most times I noticed this the next day and not right away. To solve this I moved my Icom 7610 forward on the desk, this way there is no more stretching or leaning forward to make radio changes. 

Mouse support.

The next change was dual mice for my desktop using a free software program called Either Mouse. Why 2 mice you ask.....well on my desktop during a contest I have N1MM+ contest logging program on the go and Win4icom radio control software running. During a contest, I  may need to change filter settings, adjust the audio peak filter (APF)  and so on. While doing this during a contest contact in the past meant moving my mouse off N1MM+ program and over to Win4icom program and then back. The "and back" part most of the time gave me an issue. In the heat of battle, I would move the mouse too fast and lose track of it or accidentally click the mouse let's say on a macro and send something that just confuses the contact....you get the picture. 

During a contest, I have one mouse pointer on Win4icom program and the other on  N1MM+ contest logging program. This way I can click on either program. I also am using wireless mice as I found the corded mice were affected by RFI. 

The new setup.

Well, that's if for changes here and all for the love of contesting!

I am back and it's not that I have been anywhere but summer is here and well blogging takes a sideline as I have outdoor jobs to do and after all it is summer. I do keep up my readings on the blogs that I  follow but for posting my time has been allotted to other things. Also, there have not been too many radio-related exciting things going on. Now having said that this weekend I took part in the ARRL field day function. Since selling my KX3 and K2 I have no rig to bring into the out of doors so I entered again as indoor and house power or 1D  category. 

The ARRL field day contest is more relaxed and not as intense as other CW contests and yes before you ask I entered as CW  only. The speeds are in around 20-26wpm but you do find the occasional OP hitting 30 plus. I used my faithful Icom 7610 at 100 watts into my  Hustler 4BTV. The conditions were tough at times with deep QSB. At one point a signal was S7 and then gone so most of the time you had one chance to get the other stations' info. This is my third year taking part in this "event" and to be honest, I am not sure why in the past I never took part. 

This year I decided to add some flair to my participation, I used both of my Icom 7610 independent receivers. I have always wanted to do this but some CW contests are very let's say busy for me and to juggle a second VFO on a different band would let's say stretch my abilities. BUT radio contesting is all about learning, isn't it? For the field day contest I used VFO A as my running (calling CQ  contest) VFO and VFO B on a different band to both see on the waterfall if the band was opening and to search and pounce strong stations. When doing this you have VFO A in one ear and VFO B in the other....now that takes some getting used to. But the field day contest is the ideal contest to do that as it is a relaxed event. It seemed to work for me as I doubled my score and contacts this year compared to last year's field day.