Neat Post!

The following appeared today on the SolidCopyCW e-mail reflector. It was posted by Art, K4IRS.
I liked it so much that I'm sharing it here!

CW - The Great Communicator by Art Burke, K4IRS

While reading the post about 10 reasons to enjoy code,
I remembered a recent episode I thought I'd like to
share with the group. If I did so already, my apologies.

Several months ago, there was a DXpedition to St. Paul Island (up in
Canada - they used CY9SS). I only had it on a couple of bands and
worked moderately hard to get as many more bands/modes as possible.

One day one of the ops came up on 12 meters, a pretty tough band
these days, with the sunspots down in the doldrums, but he was
working nothing but RTTY. At the time I had no equipment to work
digital modes, so I sat there, frustrated that I couldn't get into
the foray and earn another band/country for the Challenge.

An idea suddenly gleamed and I could only hope for the best. The
operator was working "split," transmitting on one frequency and
listening 2 or 3 kHz higher. It's a very common technique for
handling the pileup, regardless of the current mode. I moved my
transmit frequency up near where the other hams were sending and
turned on the "decode" function on my radio. Several radios on the
market now have this capability. I was using a 746 Pro at the time
and the 756 Pro series can do it as well.

I set one VFO on RTTY and turned on the decoder so I could see what
the DX station was sending. On the other VFO, which I was using as
my transmit VFO, I set the mode for CW. Each time the DX station
would complete a RTTY QSO and send QRZ? I would send
my call in CW, around 15 wpm and mentally cross my fingers.

About the sixth or seventh time I did this, the DX station
sent "K4IRS K4IRS OK 599 599" and I sent, in CW,
"599 599 K4IRS" and the DX station sent
"K4IRS QSL QRZ up 3" SUCCESS!

Obviously, had the DX station not also known CW, he might very well
have heard my signal, but not made heads or tails out of it. A
couple of months later, I had the QSL!

Long live CW!

Art - K4IRS

Great job, Art & thanks for sharing!

73 de Larry W2LJ