[CW] the advantage of putting the paddle at an angle and of narrow spacing

[D.J.J. Ring, Jr.]

Hello Chris,

It sounds like your having a great vacation.  At 60 wpm, you have to send
with your fingers unless you have very supple wrists and arms.  At 30 wpm it
is much more comfortable to send with the wrist and arm.

When I warm up for a 30 wpm QSO, I do what one old timer at Mobile, Alabama
Marine Radio / WLO told me.  Go as fast as possible to get your coordination
up and keep increasing it to the place where you cannot send correctly and
from that set point, increase the speed even more.  You'll be able to in
short time (maybe several minutes) increase your coordination just by
attempting to send - say 60 wpm or 65 wpm.

Then do this, he continued:  Slow down to about 15 wpm or so and at that
speed send and listen to the spaces.  REMEMBER he said to me:  SEND THE
SPACES.  Actually think about them and send them just like you send a
letter.  Send the character space, send the word space, actually force
them.  Morse with wide word spacing is even easier to copy for those who are
making pencil or typewriter copy or even as a tool to help the beginner.

Then return to your desired speed - which at marine radio stations was the
famous Western Union standard speed of 27 wpm - the rate at which you could
obtain the most revenue on a manual wire or radio circuit - faster and
someone would break you for which you'd loose money by inefficiency and any
slower, the circuit would not make enough chargeable words.

73

David

David J. Ring, Jr., N1EA <http://www.qsl.net/n1ea/>
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JARL-A1<http://a1club.net/>,
A1-OP <http://www.arrl.org/a-1-op>, ex-FOC 1271 ARRL-LM<http://www.arrl.org/>
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