[CW] Johnny Cash - CW op

[Tony]

Hi Ron,
I can't speak for "the intercept operators you heard about" but I can assure 
you that many of us worked very closely with the linguists/translators and 
analysts.  Many times, they were standing behind us or sitting beside us 
relaying information to interested parties.  It was a VERY interesting and 
fulfilling job (at least for some of us).

I didn't know Johnny Cash, but many of us could copy 35WPM or better.  The 
amazing thing about some of these guys and gals was that many of them never 
heard a dit or dah before they went to tech school.  They became extremely 
good and reliable operators.  That is one of the reasons I tend to cringe 
when I hear so many of the newcomers today say they just can't learn the 
code......and they have an incentive to learn it to better participate in 
this great hobby.  Oh well....

73
Tony, W4FOA



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron Youvan" <ka4inm at tampabay.rr.com>
To: "CW Reflector" <cw at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 2:08 PM
Subject: Re: [CW] Johnny Cash - CW op


> (Jonny) Cash said that while he was
>> stationed in Germany with the USAF, his job was High Speed Intercept
>> Operator - he copied Russian CW at 35wpm! Even got a Presidential
>> Citation for copying the signals from the first flight of one of the
>> Russian jet bombers.
>
>> He did not say anything about learning Russian so I assume that he did
>> verbatim copying and someone else translated.
>
>   The intercept operators that I heard about only learned one skill,
> to type (B4 computers on a foreign mill) what they heard on their
> earphones and nothing more.  If the mill didn't have a ? they would
> type IMI.  They were not taught the meaning of anything that they heard.
> Translators & Computers did the rest.  There were no transmitters near
> the receive sites.
> -- 
>    Ron  KA4INM - Never hit a man with glasses.  Hit him with a baseball 
> bat.
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> CW at mailman.qth.net
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