[CW] Dissing the ARRL

[David J. Ring, Jr.]

who spend 3 months  2.5 hrs a day monday - friday after school 2 hrs of
theory  1 hr of code. so i could pass my general at 14yrs of age. had to
send and receiver in those days.
wa4jqs


I'd say that was about right.

About the sending test though, recently I've been trying to see if I can
send 25 wpm, and I find that I can send 18 wpm.

I would hate to think that I did NOT send 20 wpm years ago when I took my
amateur and commercial (two separate tests - no CREDIT for having passed
being given) sending tests.

I am sure that I MUST have sent some practice runs at 20 wpm before going to
the FCC.  Didn't I?

Just in case someone wants fairly quick way to compute code speed...

WPM  = #dots/second * 2.4

So if you can send 8 dots per second that means you can send 19.2 wpm

This is based on the ITU specification of 50 baud, or 25 dots to the "word".
The word "PARIS" contains 50 baud. At 60 wpm, 25 dots (one word) will be
sent in a second, thus there is a number which when multiplied by 25 will
equal 60.  This number is 2.4.  So if we count the number of dots per second
(dots/second) which is 25 and multiply by 2.4 we get the words per minute
(wpm) of 60 wpm.

1 dot per second       2.4 wpm
2 dots per second     4.8 wpm
3 dots per second     7.2 wpm
4 dots per second     9.6 wpm
5 dots per second    12.0 wpm

6 dots per second     14.4 wpm
7 dots per second     16.8 wpm
8 dots per second     19.2 wpm
9 dots per second     21.6 wpm
10 dots per second   24.0 wpm

Also another quick way to find code speed is:

The number of characters sent in 12 seconds = wpm.
(Numbers and punctuation = 2 characters)

The longest - and perhaps most correct way - is to send PARIS over and over
for one minute, and the full number of PARIS you have sent (including the
space after the word!) is equal to the words per minute.

Right now I am struggling at 7 to 8 dots per minute, I do get into a QSO and
it "SEEMS" that I'm going faster, but I don't know.

Oh well!  I trust I did it before!  But now I wouldn't pass - too much time
not sending with a hand key.

David Ring, N1EA working on his 20 wpm on a hand key.