I did so much CW this year! At least compared to 2023 hi hi. In October of 2023 I signed up to take the January CW Innovations course. 10 weeks of bi-weekly CW classes for folks who already have an on the air presence. But I had ZERO presence on the air in CW!

I spent December of 2023 like a student cramming for an exam. I worked the SKCC circuit hard and leveraged the amazing SKCC Logger and SKED pages to get the 100 QSOs needed to get my Centurion award. Then January is the K3Y month with SKCC, so the airwaves were jammed with folks, so I was able to get the next 50 for my Tribune award. (Plus I even worked a shift as the K3Y/4 operator late in the month!). This had me sort of ready for the CWI course to start in late January.

The CWI course was really great. There were 3 coaches and 9 students in the course. We met twice a week to talk about our work that week, which included both standard drills and code buddy QSOs. We were encouraged to have one or more 'code buddies' with whom we regularly had longer QSOs each week. Mine &emdash; Gary (K4IIG) and Charles (W4CLW) &emdash; are great guys and excellent CW operators. It was easy to play games or chat about class for 20 to 30 minutes with each of them a couple of times a week. Of course, since we are all learning, it was expected that the person on the other side might only get 70, 50, or even 20% of what you are sending! That low-pressure energy was so, so helpful. It made CW fun, not merely stressful. :D

In addition to the CWI course and its included Code Buddy QSOs, I've tried to get on the air a lot this year. Sometimes that has worked, and sometimes it hasn't. Here are some highlights from the rest of my year in CW:

• Tried, and failed, a POTA activation at Watson Mill Bridge State Park (two days in a row)
• Completed two POTA activations at James "Sloppy" Floyd State Park (two days in a row)
• Got to Tribune X5 with SKCC.
• Got comfortable calling CQ during an SKCC WES weekend (this was a big one for me!).
• Answered many CQ calls with the intention of ragchewing. Usually these lasted 5 to 10 minutes, but I had a couple hit the 25+ minute mark!
• Participated in the Sasquatch Stomp and Zombie shuffle QRP events.
• Operated the W4DOC club call at the Georgia Parks on the Air outing.

I think I started 2024 with some pretty unreasonable CW goals. I saw that CWOps has a 10 week course to get you from 10 to 20 WPM and then another to go from 20 to 25+ and thought 'if you can do that in 5 months, surely I could get there in a year!' I'm sure some folks can get really fast at CW in a year, but I surely didn't! What I realized about three-quarters of the way through the CWI class, however, is that pure speed isn't really a great goal for me. That's because I like ragchew QSOs the most, and there are tons of operators happy to chat at less than 15 WPM. I'm sure it is great fun to have a long QSO at 25+ WPM, but it's awfully fun to have one at 12 WPM, too! So, I suppose, the best part of 2024 for me, radio-wise, was learning more about CW operating and learning what I actually enjoy about it. It went from a conceptual thing with theoretical goals to a lived thing with goals based in my actual preferences (I hope! hi hi).

I'm working now on formulating some goals/hopes/dreams for my CW operation in 2025, and I hope they are shaped by what I've learned over the past year! I'm one of those "forget I set goals within a month" kinds of people, so I don't expect to keep any strict records or to make much progress on an actual goal. But hopefully I can get myself thinking in the right direction for 2025!