[CW] Sending Better Morse!

[David J. J. Ring, Jr.]

Pardon me if I share some of my delusional past with you.

Since I was in all the good Morse code amateur clubs, I mistakenly 
thought I sent excellent Morse code.

It was good but not excellent, the operators at WCC, WSL (known for it's 
excellent Vibroplex operators - you will hear them on this recording: 
https://archive.org/details/LastEastboundTrans-atlanticVoyageOfqueenMarygbtt) 


I had gotten a DGM SRT 2000 keyboard after JE (Jan Edwards, W5EV (SK) 
recommended it, and I put in a CP Clare mercury wetted 50 VA relay in it 
so I could key the 200 mA keying circuits on the ships. (photo attached).
DGM Electronics Advertisement for MKB-2000

However, in the 1990s I came into possession of a beautiful used 
SRT-2000 which was a "Send-Receive-Terminal" made by DGM Electronics 
(Dennis Makovec, WA9CIY) which had a capabilities of sending and 
receiving Morse, Baudot, and ASCII.  Of course, I took it to sea along 
with a small 5 inch black and white television set and an RF video 
modulator for to convert the SRT-2000 video output to a TV signal on 
Channel 3 or 4, and I was all set to work RTTY as N1EA/MM.

But that wasn't much fun, but it WAS different.  Probably not as 
confusing as using the ship's PHILLIPS STB-750A SITOR terminal to work 
AMTOR on the amateur bands and when someone accidentally sent Control D 
(for WRU - Who are you) and they received 10897 WAKL X which was the 
ship's Automatic Answer Back, but I digress.

I also decided to use this as a code learning tool - even after sending 
and receiving Morse both as an amateur and commercial radiotelegrapher, 
and I was surprised that when I sent CQ it came out as NN TTET or NN MA 
or other variations.

At first I thought it was the "darned SRT-2000" is a piece of junk but 
knowing the very high standards of quality - Miliitary Specifications - 
of this keyboard, I decided to "listen intently to hear MY deficiencies" 
- and swallowing the lump of pride in my throat, I finally started 
hearing the letters C as being sent NN or Q as MA, and I tried to 
improve my coordination, soon the DGM was decoding my bug as CQ.

That's what I tried for - to have computer readable semi-automatic sent 
Morse! I have to say that I've received many compliments even from those 
whom I considered the best Vibroplex senders I had ever heard, and no 
doubt it was due to my using the code reader in the DGM SRT 2000 to 
nudge me into sending better.

So while it was embarrassingly unpleasant to the point of my defiant 
refusal to admit my less than perfect sending was responsible for the 
errors I saw on the screen, when I admitted it was my timing that was 
the problem, and set out to change my timing and send perfect enough to 
have the code reader copy what I was sending, eventually with the 
outpouring of compliments, the pain of embarrassment stopped and my 
resolution to correct the timing errors in MY sending was rewarded with 
better - perhaps near perfect - sending, which was what I always wanted 
to do. It was a humbling experience though.

One of the things I taught myself was to ALWAYS correctly correct an 
error - because it's good operating procedure -  but also because it's 
more work which makes ME pay attention to the quality of my sending.

If I sent this: "I SENT LIKE TSIS" (Here I send 8 dots - the error 
signal) and repeat from the last correctly sent word, "I SENT LIKE THIS" 
(and continued onward!)

73
DR
N1EA
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