Or not to key ...

 

Hams go both ways, but have you noticed something? Few blog poetically about SSB phone being their favorite mode. But CW, ah, it oft appears in print or conversation sporting a reverent halo of sorts.

Every tab here is paralleled by a deep dive into the topic. Even this tab, pointing here! Then just click the same tab!

But, i you want to avoid true blogospheric treatment of the topic, by all means don't click on that link above!

 

 

"CW" is just a convention, but an arcane one almost unique to ham radio.

 

CW viz radio is not even in Websters 11th Collegiate Dictionary (the current one), where it stands solely for Chemical Warfare. That is not ham radio! But you can find CW in the ARRL Handbook for Radio Communications.

"Continuous Wave" signaling is a preferred definition there, but not necessarily the most accurate. There are other options. Even the FCC acknowledges this by refusing to commit to, or even describe it in greater detail than 'Morse telegraphy by means of on-off keying'. And this is actually incorrect because it omits the word "radio." Incredible!

Most ruthlessly, CW means the interruption of a carrier wave (or "ICW"), as in the Wikipedia entry for CW, dumping continuous completely. This leads to issues about what that might be, or not be. Engineers would call it something quite different if they cared at all. But high performance communication systems don't even have CW in the rear view mirror. It's gone, gone, gone. Not even a footnote in a modern textbook.

ARRL very much bothers to declare CW, implicity, to be a carrier-supported transmission, in other words, radio.

Telegraphy sans radio carrier is not CW, it's just telegraphy. You know, the thing in movie westerns and such, like Around the World in Eighty Days* where it plays a key role (pun intended). No radio back then. Barely a demo of it, that by Hertz who dies young before he can do anything practical with it. But we'll remember him forever.

Whatever it is, CW is only radio telegraphy; i.e., wireless, today and always.

CW is the very simplest thing we can do in ham radio, yet utterly sublime. It may be "slow," but it's beautiful and accessible to even the newest ham and simplest shack. Even to SWL'ers who care to learn Morse.

So much more to say, you're grateful that it's here at the same tab name, and not right here!

 

* You can find Jules Verne's entire novel on the incredible Project Gutenbeg site. Then just Find all references to "telegraph." There are 12. Including citing the most iconic newspaper of the day (back in 1873) The Daily Telegraph. So even the news, basically all news more than 12 hours away by (steam) train, was by telegraphy, but not by radio! There's also the original 1956 Hollywood movie, still a great viewing pleasure even after all these years - on any streaming service carrying films.

 

 

What history this key thing has wrought.

 

From wired comm(unication)s to radio comms, virtually all of it springs forth from the USA, strangely enough.

The first serially-coded transmission scheme was the single-wire American Morse-Vail telegraph. The coding scheme for this eventually became the standard we use today, International Morse Code.

As often, wily characters invent the whole thing, starting with Samuel Morse 75 years before radio. His was originally a crazy idea, suitable only for computers, which of course didn't exist back then. But it did specify dits and dahs, and for that, one supposes, we remember Morse forever. And alas forget Alfred Vail, who actually invented the code, as opposed to the symbols. Yeah, there's a difference there that any engineer would recognize.

The first CW was Marconi's Morse code "wireless" 6km demo (1887), eventually stretched by hop (skip and jump, a wondrous mystery) across the Atlantic (1901), one way from England to New Jersey, as a spark-gap transmission.

It would take another two decades for anything more practical in CW to happen, and it was almost obsolete, and certainly not cost effective, on arrival by then!

But throughout all the following decades, radio amateurs kept the waveform alive for sheer fun and DX.

If you can stand more of this, go to the same tab here, as usual.

 

 

Looking for practice at various WPM? Here are some convoluted links for CW Op(eration)s.

Then there is the CWops gang itself, to which the swifter may be magnetically drawn.

For fun and myriad suggestions, a nice piece from Gary, ZL2IFB, is The FOC Guide to Morse Code Proficiency. I notice that Gary has his paddle on a anti-slip pad. They do slip around at just the wrong moment!

There's a much older, but not necessarily moldier, treatise on CW that's worth a look. Half psychological (take that as you like), the other half is filled with history and good practical stuff. I particularly liked Chapter 6.

If anything more esoteric seems useful, or at least entertaining, find more here at the same tab, as usual.

 

 

Now this is getting esoteric.

 

You can generate CW several ways. For modern rigs, you can even generate it on your computer and, via a (typically digital) interface, drive an audio version of CW into your rig. Since ARRL recognizes, say, AFSK as an audio interface (to a computer) for FSK tones into (and out of) your modern rig, you could say the same about such CW, thus the "ACW" interface. You can then use your keyboard to "make CW," and your computer display to "decode CW." A bunch of keys instead of one key. And software instead of your ear. This is, sort of, a hijacking of the original idea. It is more related to RTTY than "purist" CW.

There's a lot more to say about this scheme here, as usual.

 

 

Very esoteric, and yet, very commonplace.

 

Iambic keying is beyond straight keys, beyond bugs. It is enabled by two-lever "paddles," squeezed together to automatically generate a sequence of dit-dahs (or dah-dits as an option), in addition to the usual runs of dits or dahs of a plain vanilla keyer, or from a single-lever paddle into a keyer (often the built-in keyer of your modern rig).

Iambic has loyal fans and serious detractors.

You really need to do some serious investigating before moving (from a straight key we might presume) to a keyer. You need to decide if you want to "be iambic." It's a big step, and difficult to reverse. And not just because good single-lever paddles are expensive! The vastly more common double-lever paddles really cannot undo iambic, regardless of your keyer's capabilities, unless you use the kludge of affixing the two separate paddles (or its levers) to a common intermediate spacer, so as to prevent the squeeze. Really ugly if you ask me. Better, make the best decision for you before embarking! I encourage a talk with any expert you come into contact with. They are often wise.

You may initially have zero interest in this. But if you start using CW, I guarantee you will become interested.

So much more to say, here, of course.

 

 

Finally, a wildly esoteric topic. Really, off-the-charts esoteric.

 

Not surprisingly, you can receive and send CW as a true, high fidelty audio signal. Pretty much the same way you hear another's and send your voice over SSB. Why would anyone bother to do this?

Well, they do. And here is the full story. If you can stand it.