In 2022 I reactivated my amateur radio license as VK3WOW after a four decade hiatus, and immediately began relearning how to send and receive Morse code.
Not long afterwards, I discovered a group of keen Morse operators who, for various reasons, prefer to work at relatively slow (QRS) speeds, and who get together on the air on Tuesday nights. Participating operators often contribute to a newsletter known as "CQ QRS RagChew" which Mark Bosma VK2KI publishes weekly.
The native format of this newsletter does not readily support full text searching. However, using a combination of a purpose-trained neural net and OCR, I have been able to create a sufficiently accurate replica of each newsletter to support a useful, if not perfect, search function.
Note that in the reconstructed versions of each newsletter presented here:
Search the CQ QRS RagChew archive:
Alittle quieter on our Tuesday CQQRS Slow CW practice QSO net this week - I counted 29 of our team chatting to 45 other stations; 80m in particular was peculiarly quiet. However, from the reports below, everyone had themselves a…
Well well well.... wasn’t Tuesday’s net interesting? The Bureau of Meteorology’s Space Weather Services predicted difficult conditions following two solar flares - anc the prediction was right. We all had fun, but things were challenging. Our DXperiment stations in the…
Well well... what fun on Tuesday - Simon out portable early on a rainy morning on the Italian Mediterranean, Rob maritime mobile, me fiddling with Remote stations in WA and finding how hard it was to transmit without decent side-tone…
Another pearler on Tuesday! So many people having such a good time, practicing, learning, or just relaxing and having fun! Read on for more. Relax. Ifyou haven't worked it out already, relaxing and having fun with slow CW is what…
If I said there was 67 stations worked or heard on Tuesday’s CQQRS Slow CW practice QSO net... would you believe me? What a great team! So in this newsletter you'll read the reports from our reporters, you’ll learn about…
Great fun on Tuesday night again - lots of people on having such a good time! The reports indicate that we had 60 stations on this week - woo hoo! Thanks to everyone who had a go.... and especially those…
Thanks this week to Ketut VK3BWN - we could just about hear the grin on his face when he was operating from his back porch on Tuesday night! See Other News for Ketut's terrific report - thanks for sharing your…
Wasn’t Tuesday just great fun? We had a good turn-out again - so many people having such a satisfying time - learning, practicing, or just relaxing having fun. What a great team! Thank you all. Terrific to see our team…
Wow, wasn’t last Tuesday's CQQRS Practice QSO net great? I was amazed when I checked the VK6QS KiwiSDR receiver part way through the evening - the waterfall had turned into a downpour - with signals romping in from the East…
Would you be surprised if I didn’t say Tuesday was a ripper? I would! Wasn'tit great to have such good conditions and so many of our mates on air - all enjoying the gentle art of slow CW. This week…
CQ QRS RagChew Terrific to see our numbers on air increasing again this week. We had 41 reports from our team about our Tuesday net, and 57 stations heard. The reports showed that most of us had fun on the…
If I said last Tuesday’s net wasn’t great fun, would you believe me? Nope! It was great! Although numbers were still down a bit on last year’s participation rates (where have all our Kiwi mates gone’), our little segment of…
Well what fun! Although we had only 43 stations on Tuesday evening, boy did we all have fun! I really went to town with rag-chews - some nearly an hour long. For someone who hated CW and vowed to never…
As the weather continued to challenge us both on and off the airwaves, it's been a week of persistence, innovation, and camaraderie within the group. Whether you've been operating from the comfort of your home or enjoying some portable ops…
Things were looking up for this week's CQQRS Slow CW QSO practice net on Tuesday. A number of people reported that band conditions were good, but our numbers were still down a bit - only 55 stations heard on air,…
It’s time to think again about this year’s International Morse Code Day quiz, held via Zoom in April. Richard VK6PZT has been running these events each year, and the participants all had a scream - great fun. The event is…
Last Tuesday’s Group Masthead Image And thanks this week to David VK6KD portable near Mansfield in the Victorian High Country for the screenshot from his phone of some of the participants in our HNY 20m / Zoom event on Thursday.…
Terrific to hear so many of our team on Tuesday who tore themselves away from their New Year's Eve fandangos and joined the QRS celebrations on air. I had a great time, and I know many of the others on…
Well well - another hugely successful year for our CQQRS Slow CW Practice @SO net. We now have over 200 readers of the weekly RagChew newsletter, and most weeks have around 5 dozen people on air on Tuesdays, enjoying the…
Terrific to hear so many of our team on air having fun on our Tuesday evening CQQRS Slow CW Practice QSO net this week. I was using my tiny plastic (tr)uSDR Arduino-powered transceiver again, this time from the balcony of…
Inverted-L on a 3.6m collapsable fishing pole at our hotel in Lorne. Neat unobtrusive installation... pity it didn’t work! Last Tuesday’s Group Here’s this week’s list of the 64 stations heard by our team members: Reports Many people have told…
Last Tuesday’s Group Here’s this week’s list of the 57 stations heard on the CQQRS net on Tuesday Masthead Image Reports Submissions close lunch time on Thursday. If you hear or work one of our team on a different band…
Poor propagation conditions, static crashes from thunderstorms and generally tough conditions kept our numbers down significantly last Tuesday... but those of us who battled through had a great time! And I’m pleased to announce that despite the conditions, we had…
Early Tuesday morning UK time at the start of this week’s CQQRS net. First snow of the season - Simon MOKBJ at Wolverhampton So many stations on air.... so much fun had! Tuesday’s net was great fun, with lots of…
Simon MOKBJ at Sea Palling near Norfolk - testing out then abandonin« a possible location on Monday before Tuesday's DXperiment. Last Tuesday's net was a bit quieter than we've become accustomed to lately (we had reports of 42 stations, versus…