[CW] Fast hand speed - over 25 wpm

[David J. Ring, Jr.]

Hello CW operators!

A few years ago, someone on here mentioned that it was "impossible" for 
anyone to send 25 wpm with a hand key.  Some of those who said they "used to 
be able to" were no longer able to.  It takes constant practice to keep this 
speed.  I remember handling traffic from a ship with a South American Radio 
Officer, who was sending nearly 30 wpm - he was using a hand key - I was 
stunned.  I had been a bit critical of his fist, but seeing that he was 
doing it on an "up and downer" key, now I was impressed!

For several years, I have been trying to find a recording of fast hand speed
key sending.  I have just found one!

The various Wireless Colleges, such as Colywn Bay, and London, and Bremen,
Germany required that their students pass 25 wpm (125 gpm) minimum sending
and receiving tests.

I tried to contact the old students, but somehow they've aged and when push
came to shove, they found that they could no longer (although many thought
they could!) send 25 wpm on a hand key.

Recently, I stumbled upon a page of recordings of mostly 78 records and
Edison cylenders from the early 20th century - one had "fast radio code".

I've copied the file and cleaned it up a bit and posted it here.

The segment of the recording is about 42 seconds.  According to my counting
and calculations, the code speed seems to be just about 27 wpm.

I made a count of 19.2 words in 42 seconds.  This comes out to be 27.4 words
in 60 seconds.

Here is the location of the file:

http://www.qsl.net/n1ea/fast_hand_key.mp3

Here is where the original sound file came from:
http://www.normanfield.fsnet.co.uk/morse.htm
(*There is also a recording of Thomas A. Edison sending morse there... he
also invented the recording machine...)

Here is what I decoded:

NEAR RADIO CAROLINE FTO 81044 III 50S = DURP CASTELNUEVO = VAPOR ALCANTARA
SALDRA BARCELONIA EL OCHO NOR

42 seconds long - RCI80 45USU =RTAB LEN +2
18.5 WORDD


Note - at the time this was recorded, III was the signal for period in
Internal Morse Code.

The recordings of American morse on
http://www.normanfield.fsnet.co.uk/morse.htm would also be of people who
were first generation telegraphers - Civil War sounds.  This is what Morse
Code sounded like in the 19th Century!!!

73

David Ring, N1EA