CQ CQ - Calling all HAMS - in Morse code

[IK0ZCW]

Just a quick video from today's Amateur radio Field Day. As someone learning HAM radio, I only speak a few letters of Morse, but events like this let the general public get involved, talk to others around the world, and occasionally some of them show off their skills.

About half a dozen of us had worked at the radio all afternoon.. about 5 hours so far, and made four contacts. Robin made that in like 15 minutes... turkey!

You don't know it to look at him, or even to be around him, but the man operating this radio at the time is Robin.. and he's blind.

Basically what you're seeing is Robin typing out his field day messages in CW (morse code) and others responding back to him.

The message says something like the following:
CQ Field Day. CQ Field Day. K4OGB. (that's the greeting to operators to respond to the control operator so he can initiate contact and pass back information.)

The conversation is recorded using certain pieces of information.
When Robin makes a new contact (and I'll make one up here) he basically says
"I'm K40GB, station 2E, location NC"
It's transmitted like K40GB2ENC
The person on the other end verifies and passes back their information. - KWY762ENTX
That's basically saying Hey K4OGB. I'm KWY76. I'm a class 2e operator, and I'm broadcasting from North Texas.

The most amazing thing, to me anyway, is how quickly and accurately Robin can both transmit and understand morse. The guy beside him is making notes of all his contacts for the club's record log for the day.

Pretty neat to see it in action.