When I tune into CW on SW, often I drop the pitch. Now I realize that
if I am going to record cw to then play it back at a slower speed, then
I might have to record the cw at a higher pitch. Unless the reel to
real recoder has a pitch button.

Nope...or mine don't anyway...

Then their is the radio drifting problem as of lately on 75m.

uh oh...Time for a better radio....


And sometimes the 2nd persons who is transmitting cw, might be at a
whole different pitch. In fact that may not be a bad idea because it
helps identify the other person. Sometimes I wonder if this is normal
practice. Are cw ham stations suppose to be at a certain pitch?

No. When working CW, you tune the pitch to suit your ear. The average
listening pitch will be appx 600-1000 cycles, depending on preference.
The radios usually have a built in offset, so both can hear each other
at the same appx pitch. Most radios also have a "RIT" which will
let you fine tune the rcvr, while leaving the xmit freq the same.
"XIT" is the opposite... Moves xmit, and leaves rcvr as is...

Also, is it possible to tell if the cw transmission is by a straight
key?

Sure...Sticks out like a sore thumb to me....Well, unless they are
super
clean and even... I use an iambic keyer, and a bencher paddle.
Makes perfect characters.

It would really be fun to copy cw at a slower speed. Sometimes it is
hard for be to find someone transmitting at 5-10 wpm. It seems most
are
above 10 wpm.

You can thank the present state of ham radio for that. Being as most
clamour for "no code", it is being slowly dropped from the ticket
requirements, and thus is slowly falling off. The "novice" sub bands
used
to be the place to hang for slow code, but it's getting so slow there,
you are lucky to find anyone to listen to. Those bands used to be jam
packed until the novice 10m phone band came along. After that, many
novices jumped to 10m fone, and dropped code on the lower bands.
The no-code tech's also pretty much ignore, unless they are looking to
learn code.

And then their is RTTY, I am not too sure what that is. My Icom R75
has
some kind of feature for this. I looked up RTTY in the book "Now Your
Talking" in the glossary, but still I am not too sure what is it. But
I
will do some googling on this.

RTTY is radio teletype. You can copy it with the same free software
usually used for PSK31, etc...Ham scope will work as an example
if you install the MM rrrty engine. The best place to listen to RTTY
is probably on 20m. "14 mhz". Try the 14.080 area, + or -.... RTTY
sounds quite a bit different than PSK31... No problem telling which is
which once you know the sound.
The best place for slow CW is still the novice sub bands, but you gotta
look harder than in years past. I remember even in the 80's, the 80m
novice band used to be so crowded you couldn't find a place to sit.
Now? It's a barren wasteland... No problem finding room to sit... :/
Heck, I can get on there if anyone is really interested in practice.
Just let me know, and we can set a sked... You'll need a tech +, or a
novice ticket to use those novice bands.
MK