K5TO - Wally - QRQ Appliance Operator?

[Wally Maxwell]

Ah yes...modern telegraphy with modern radios. On Thursday morning May 21st 2009 I fired up the Jupiter to meet with Ted K5LGJ on 3.530 MHz at 7AM. Ted's got a few years on me at age 89 soon to be 90 (I'll be 72 6/1/09). But at exactly 7AM (yes by WWV stds of course) Ted calls me, but "old" Wally's fumbling around trying to get PC booted to use software CW generator program 'YPLog'. I put out a carrier a couple of times to let Ted know I was there (naturally I don't have a mechanical key as how would one use it?). Soon 'YPLog' was up and running and I responded to Ted letting him know I was there. No response. Shortly I get an email from Ted asking what happened as he heard me S9+ and I did not respond to his transmissions. He'd checked his rig, power output, etc. and everything seemed fine on his end. I replied to Ted's email suggesting he put his transmit frequency on 3.530MHz as I didn't hear him (especially after I hit the Tune button).
Sorry Ted but later discovered the problem was on this end (after a bit of coffee). When I hit Tune I accidentally hit ALT - MODE intead of ALT - TUNE putting the Jupiter Rx (split-mode) into FM mode with TX remaining in CW mode. Amazingly I heard nothing from Ted and gave up the sked. I sent Ted an email apologizing for my ineptness which was not apropos for one celebrating his 50th anniversary as a licensed amateur radio operator (yeah, today old K5TO).
Aw shucks guy, engineers make mistakes too. All that's needed now are "smart rigs" that tell you "listening FM mode", "transmitting CW mode". Hi.
73 to all.
Wally - K5TO

[Chuck aa0hw]

Excellent commentary Wally !
...brings to mind the possible need for "old school" gear for backup, just in case, for scenarios such as you have just described. With the advent of the modern QRQ ERA....one wonders at times like these, how dependent we truly are on the "other" type of code that runs the programs we are actually using in order to send QRQ CW code.