[CW] 45 WPM Handkeying........

[KØHB]

----- Original Message -----
From: "kburrows" <kburrows@lvp.eastlink.ca>


> It would be interesting to see if anyone could copy
> the straight key at 45 wpm (if indeed it can be send that fast) I would
> think it would be quite the mess...

Back in my mis-spent youth I was a Navy RM aboard a destroyer bound from Athens
to Dubai.  If you glance at a map you'll see the route goes through the Suez
canal.  Ships transit the canal in convoys, one northbound and one southbound.
They meet each other and pass at a wide spot called the Great Bitter Lake.
Protocol requires that if there is a man-o'-war in the convoy, she will lead the
convoy and carry the pilot.  Communications from the pilot ship to the canal
control was via CW to coordinate the passage so the convoys meet at the proper
time in this "wide spot in the road".

Me being a hot shot, easily capable of copying 40-45WPM, got impatient with the
lowly 25WPM Egyptian sand-crab civilian on the circuit and asked him to QRQ.

BIG BIG mistake!!!!  He absolutely BURIED me, with perfectly formed code on a
hand key, in excess of my ability to copy.

73, de Hans, K0HB, ex-NHXW