[CW] CW in Russia

Mon, 9 Feb 2004 19:37:15 -0600

    When I was getting my speed from 13 to 20 for the Extra test, I would
get on at night with the beam turned North and work the Russians.  They
would pile up to talk to me.  This was in the late 70's and early 80's.
They were all great CW operators - I learned afterwards that a lot of the
Russian military and commercial links were all by hand CW as they could not
afford all of the RTTY equipment needed.
    The best was once I listened to two Russian hams, one in RSFSR and the
other in Siberia communicating in English alphabet CW at about 25 - 30 WPM -
not too bad considering their basic CW knowledge was of the Cyrillic
alphabet not English.
    They were nice to talk to but rarely got past RST, name and QTH.  Once
in a while one could get them on weather and rig but otherwise it was quick
qso
    Probably the most fun was when a ham in Siberia asked me to find the
score of the Russian hockey team that was touring the USA playing some of
the NHL teams - this was quite a bit before the internet but I did call a
local AM radio station and they had the score on the TTY.  I called back to
the USSR station and passed on the score - always wondered if that was
illegal third party traffic.
73, Art K5FNQ

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "kburrows" <[email protected]>
To: "Kenneth Cooperstein" <[email protected]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 15:56
Subject: Re: [CW] CW in Russia


> This must have been why they were the best operators we used to hear.
> They used to run traffic about twice as fast as most other
> stations..
>
> VE1DS
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Kenneth Cooperstein" <[email protected]>
> To: <[email protected]>
> Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 10:19
> Subject: [CW] CW in Russia
>
>
> > I had seen that CW was a mandatory skill for elementary school children
> > in the former Soviet Union and that CW was universally known.
> >
> > Anyone know if that was true?  Are they still doing that in Russia and
> > the Ukraine?
> >
> > This might have some bearing on the current discussion in the USA.
> >
> > Ken KC2JDY
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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