[CW] W6BNB's comments to FCC

[N7DC@cs.com]

Hmmmm    In all the tests I ever took in 33 years of military and civilian 
telecommunications, 20 wpm was 20 wpm, whether it was in plain language, or in 
code groups.  Five letters and one space makes a word in 5 letter code groups, 
and you count the total letters/spaces/etc. in plain language and divide by 6 
to get wpm. I never took the commercial with the FCC as government employees 
were not required to do so, but that is the first I ever heard of that.  I also 
taught code, and administered tests at times, and 20 was 20 on all those.  In 
order to pass a code speed, we were required to copy set minutes perfectly 
for each 1 wpm of speed.  In other words Ten wpm required ten minutes (100 
groups) of perfect copy, in a 15 minute period.  40 wpm required ten minutes (400 
groups) in 15 minutes, etc.  
   At other times, we were allowed errors within the best 400 group copy, but 
for every error, they deducted 1 wpm from the passed speed.  We actually 
seldom took tests for plain copy, as most of what we sent was 5 letter code 
groups. 

Also there were "cut" number tests, wherein you actually used shorthand in 
your sending, and sent 5 number groups. a=1  u=2  v=3  4=4  e=5  6=6  b=7  d=8  
n=9 t=0.    Other methods actually only used 4 cut numbers, and the rest as 
long numbers.  We also had to know the Cyrillic (Russians, Greek, etc.) and Some 
odd characters in Arabic, and Chinese, etc.  All very confusing, and IM 
afraid I have even forgotten some of it, having not use that stuff for 40 years.  


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