I’ve been working a fair number of POTA stations lately – I have a Sapphire award for over 75 stations “hunted”. Woo-hoo! Not a big deal, really. Most have been FT8 or FT4 data modes, which I barely count as contacts. Going by the award endorsements, at least 20 have been phone, the rest data modes. Until today, I don’t think any have been CW. One of the reasons is that they’re almost always running 20 WPM or better – way too fast for me. I have, however, been working on a (temporary) solution for that until I get my copy speed back up.
The FT-1000 has an internal “contest keyer”, at least in terms of what qualified in the 90s and early 2000s. Yes, of course I have a few keyers around, but I kind of wanted to be able to use the rig’s internal memory keyer and dedicate my MK-1 to other radios. I bought a cheap-ass but working version of the Yaesu FH-1 remote key pad. The only difference between that the FH-1 is the button markings. Anyway, I set up one memory with just my call sign, and another one with the exchange – “TU 599 NE 5NN NE K”. Now all I need to do is listen to the POTA station’s call sign a couple of times to get it all, and I can use the keyer to send what I need to.
I worked N2DA on 20 meters this afternoon, and got my first CW POTA contact in the log… and my first CW contact using the Mark V FT-1000.