[CW] ARRL bad CW Practice

[Richard Knoppow]

    BTW, this may have answered a puzzle on my part. When I 
copied press transmissions from RCA and MacKay long ago I found a 
couple of small differences in practice: RCA used quotation marks 
before and after quoted text while MacKay sent two apostrophes. 
In this ITU document it states that the repeated apostrophes may 
be used where there is an automatic code translator operating. I 
suspect this may explain the use of this practice by MacKay 
although I have no specific information. I don't remember the 
other slight differences except that RCA used all conventional 
signals.
    For those who don't remember the RCA stations were WCC and 
KPH and MacKay stations were WSL and KFS.   Both stations sent 
United Press news for subscribing ships every day for about two 
hours. The signals originated on paper tape.
    I also heard press sent from WNU in New Orleans (Tropical 
Radio Telegraph Co) but it was sent by hand and was interspersed 
with traffic. There may have been other press sent by U.S. 
stations but I never heard any.

On 4/14/2022 2:18 PM, Darrel wrote:
> Just to reinforce Richard's comment:
> 
> https://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-M.1677-1-200910-I/
> 
> *ITU  RECOMMENDATION ITU-R M.1677-1*
> *International Morse code**
> *
> Part I, section 4.3:
> *
> A number that includes a fraction shall be transmitted with the
> fraction linked to the whole**number by a single hyphen.**
> 
> 
> *
> Cheers,
>       Darrel, aa7fv.
> 
> 
> On 4/14/2022 13:50, Richard Knoppow wrote:
>>    I was just reminded of a bad practice by W1AW. That is the 
>> failure to use a separation between numbers and fractions. For 
>> instance W1AW sends 7-1/2 WPM as 71/2 WPM. The use of a dash to 
>> separate a number from a fraction is made clear in, for 
>> instance, the 1968 edition of the General Post Office handbook 
>> for radio operators on p.154 and in most other books on 
>> telegraph operating. I think it is well established and goes 
>> back to wire line practice although I have not looked it up. It 
>> makes good sense to use it. The ARRL seems to go its own way 
>> but people are supposed to learn good practice from their 
>> transmissions so this is a fairly serious error.
> 

-- 
Richard Knoppow
1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
WB6KBL