What is CW?

In amateur radio, CW stands for Continuous Wave. It is the operating emission mode most commonly associated with sending and receiving Morse code. The term originates from early radio history, distinguishing continuous, unmodulated radio waves (which could be keyed on and off to form dots and dashes) from older, messy spark-gap transmissions. Today, when hams talk about operating CW, they simply mean they are using Morse code. Distractors like 'coil winding' are just made-up phrases intended to match the letters C and W, and it is certainly not a 2-meter FM digital mode.