I made my first CW contact in January of 2020. I don’t recall how long it took me to get the confidence to make that contact, but I’m sure it was months, and not years. By August of 2022, I was operating CW significantly more than any other mode. As of this writing, I’ve been operating CW exclusively for at least a couple of years. My CW journey is not unique.
In the here and now there are many HAMs taking up CW without the olden-day requirements of knowing code to get your license. Being the 100 watt DX’er that I am, I wanted to be able to chase a good DX contact in whatever mode was being used by the distant operator.
CW presents a challenge. It’s not plug and play, and it’s not point and click. It takes a commitment of time and energy to learn and eventually conquer. Not everyone can or wants to take this path. And yet Groups like LICW and SKCC continue to grow their membership rolls. CW pileups are everywhere and there is no evidence of this slowing down anytime soon.
Yet, in several recent issues of QST, there are letters from HAMs longing for the code requirement to be reinstated. QST is not the only forum where this sentiment appears. Facebook, Larry’s List, and other Amateur Radio online hangouts have all been witness to these postings. These requests are usually made even while acknowledging the current growth in this segment of our hobby. Missing from the conversation is any logical reason to bring the code requirement back.
Are these the musings of the Old Guard trying to make HAM Radio a more exclusive club? Are there still operators out there who had to learn code to get their license and now resent the new HAM’s who today face no such hurdles? Whatever their concerns, I’ll just say it: Change happens.
I’ve been an amateur drummer, an amateur photographer, and now an Amateur Radio operator. In each journey I have encountered many different ways of contributing to each hobby. I have also encountered individuals that longed for the way it used to be. Film photography over digital, acoustic drums over electric. Any hobby with a significant following encounters these questions. Yet they have all survived. Nobody has ever been forced to choose one path over another.
Amateur Radio has evolved significantly just in the ten years since I joined its ranks. So has the rest of the world. Change is constant and time travel is not in our future. There is nothing stopping anyone from continuing to enjoy CW, no matter the route that the operator on the far-end took to get you in their log.