>
G3KEV replied:
> Tell me Rik, why is there no qrss(LMCW) when the band is noisy like lots
> of qrn/static about.
> My ANSWER after monitoring and experimentation with
> spectran is that the qrn chops the long dashes and you cannot
> be sure if it was lots of dots.

On the contrary,

Had you been listening today you might change your mind. I tuned to a weak
steady carrier and the QRN was so consistant that it  chewed it up completely.
Not just intermittent crashes but the STATIC was virtually continuous. I then
worked G8RW and gave him 259. It was a struggle but on normal cw I made it. I
was monitoring him on spectrogram and NO way would it have been possible to read
his signals visually and make any sense of the transmission.
I tried all permutations of spectrogram and it made little difference. My
observations in the past indicate that the band has to be relatively quiet to
see weak signals and read the information, and most of the time is it guesswork,
because you already know in advance who is going to be active.
Say what you like about the so called advantages of slow morse. I have yet to
see anyone attempting a qso under the conditions that I have described above,
and I always monitor for slow morse as well as normal activities. The slow morse
activity that I do see can easily be copied aurally at my qth.
Maybe my antenna is above average. I have yet to see a qso on slow cw that I
cannot copy both ends by ear.
G3KEV

I find that the advantage of QRSS is even greater
under heavy QRN - it's often the only mode that is viable in the
summer. Static crashes are usually much shorter than the dot
period and it is much easier to watch the bright white lines of static
than to listen to QRN. I cannot vouch for Spectran, but
Spectrogram works well under these conditions.

Mike, G3XDV (IO91VT)
http://www.dennison.demon.co.uk/activity.htm