[ARC5] 500 KHZ Emergency Frequency

[Richard Knoppow]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Cromwell" <wrcromwell at gmail.com>
To: "Sandy" <ebjr37 at charter.net>
Cc: "Roy Morgan" <k1lky at earthlink.net>; 
<Arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 12:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ARC5] 500 KHZ Emergency Frequency


> On Thu, 2012-08-16 at 12:56 -0500, Sandy wrote:
> ---snip---
>>
>> I really miss those days when 600 meters was very active. 
>> Also the huge
>> amount of HF activity as well that is gone now.....end 
>> of  a golden era of
>> radio communication on Morse.  It will probably never 
>> return to that "glory
>> era" again for any reason.
>>
>> 73,
>>
>> Sandy W5TVW
>
> Hi,
>
> Those shore stations and ships at sea were one source of 
> practice when I
> was learning morse code. There was a certain romance about 
> listening
> marine traffic.
>
> 73,
>
> Bill  KU8H

    One of my principle sources of code practice when I was 
learning (actually I still am) was the press transmissions 
made once a day from the main stations of RCA and MRT, KPH 
and KFS in the West and WCC and WSL in the East.  Each sent 
the same stuff, AP and later UP press with stock market 
reports and weather lasting over an hour.  It was sent by 
machine at about 25WPM so I tape recorded it and played it 
at half speed.  I wish I still had those recordings.  The 
Navy sent tons of five letter code groups at around 30 WPM, 
maybe faster.  I also sometimes heard press from WNU (TRT in 
New Orleans) sent by hand and interrupted for traffic. The 
press transmissions were broken for the international silent 
periods during which a wheel was sent.
    There were about 18 coastal stations in the US including 
Hawaii and lots of foreign ones. Ships were interesting to 
copy, lots of really bad, chirpy, signals and bad fists. I 
think shore station operators had to be good at reading 
really bad "handwriting".
    Morse telegraphy, both wired and radio depended entirely 
on the skill of the operators (with the exception of the 
high speed point-to-point stuff sent and received by 
machine) not much around now like that.


--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL
dickburk at ix.netcom.com