Conversations with Vern, W9FAM

Just had a 40 meter, morning with coffee, QSO with Vern, W9FAM. Vern is a legend. HIs website is worth a peek if you do not believe me!

Anyway, we were talking about QRQ, a passion for both of us. One of the topics we both agreed on was the importance of word spacing in QRQ and, for that matter, at any speed. I often, find myself just running words together if I am not careful. If anything, exaggerating the spaces between words can really improve copy, especially if there is QSB or signal strengths are not S9. Repeating uncommon words helps too.

One trick, Chuck, AA0HW, has brought up is to do away with punctuation such as periods, commas, which most of us do already, but also to substitute a space for BT. Then, QRQ is more like talking. We do not talk continuously, but break up our speech with pauses that give the other person a chance to catch up with our thoughts and break in if she wants to. Chuck has even got a discussion on this site describing how to set up the Windows program AutoHotKeys so when you hit the comma on the keyboard you get three spaces and hitting the period gives you 7 spaces. For QRS, the spaces are not so important but really help me at speeds over 45 wpm. What do you all think?

Anyway, a conversation with W9FAM should be mandatory for all CW ops and should be repeated as often as possible. Verns enthusiasm is a tonic!

Joe W3GW

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