[CW] Sending Better Morse!

Sun Feb 20 12:15:59 EST 2022

Thanks guys for filling in and enlightening us younger (71) ops of some of our CW heritage. I was a CW SWL in 1965/66 WPE6GPQ, monitored hams, sent signal reports and got QSLs from them. All said “ Mike get your ticket so we can talk!” Most we’re on bugs and a few TO Keyers from hallicrafters. Copied KPH regularly as well. Pretty much all CW ops could be identified by their fist. Be it straight key or bug. And like music, it can be interpreted differently by the individual and the instrument. My 1913 Horace Martin sits proudly next to my Alberto Frattini J-36 with numerous pairs in the regular rotation. Love this original digital mode… long live home grown CW…
Mike K6LQ 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 20, 2022, at 6:52 AM, Bill Lanahan <wa2nfn at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi Spud
> 
> I had cataract surgery awhile so I thought my eyes were playing tricks when I saw Bill Lenahan, my name is Bill Lanahan. All musical and cw skill abilities unfortunately vary much more than the name spelling. 
> 
> But at 67 I’m still hopeful. Even just started training my 22 year old grandson. Anyway I’m rambling. 
> 
> 73 wa2nfn
> Bill Lanahan
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>>> On Feb 20, 2022, at 9:18 AM, spud roscoe <spudrve1bc at outlook.com> wrote:
>>> 
>> 
>> Dave you should mention the bug fists in the Canadian Coast Guard Ships. Bill Lenahan in Narwhal/CGBP, Rick Falvey VE1HA in most of them but I remember Labrador/CGGM the most. Neville Best in Hudson/CGDG. Wilf Fontaine VY2CT,  in Wolfe/CGCT, heck Wilf could not get a piece of paper in a waste basket without getting a musical rhythm out of it. Naming these few is an insult to the others who were just as good. What I would not give to copy a thousand words from any of them at any time.
>>  
>> I will never forget the time someone noticed the mates cabin was full of Newfoundlanders. Someone pulled the cork out of a bottle of black rum and handed it in. It went around the room. After awhile someone threw in one of those old button accordions. I’ll be damned, everyone of them had a go at it and a different tune from each one.
>>  
>> Ah the memories!
>>  
>> Spud
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> Sent from Mail for Windows
>>  
>> From: spud roscoe
>> Sent: February 20, 2022 9:31 AM
>> To: CW Reflector
>> Subject: RE: [CW] Sending Better Morse!
>>  
>> Damn it Dave you are making me homesick. The flying operator was very fast as well. Reay Bridger was in charge of VFU Shediac for awhile back in the thirties and told me he was afraid he might have to sit in for one of the operators, and knew he could not copy that fast code.
>>  
>> Another thing the Italian aircraft on the Atlantic had beautiful registrations and of course call signs; I-LOVE, I-LUCY, I-LADY and so on.
>>  
>> 73
>> Spud VE1BC
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> Sent from Mail for Windows
>>  
>> From: D.J.J. Ring, Jr.
>> Sent: February 20, 2022 7:18 AM
>> To: CW Reflector
>> Subject: Re: [CW] Sending Better Morse!
>>  
>> I agree with you, Hans, and both of those guys sent very well.  I guess I should have added that it's like music, the musician tries to play as perfectly as possible, but instead of becoming sterile, too perfect music, when he lets go of his trying and just "does it", it becomes "soulful" and the slight imperfections become a type of beauty all it's own.
>>  
>> That being said, I still love the old telegraphy sound of the Great Lakes, and that of the old and now dead, South American flight radio officers who let their dots be sent at nearly double the speed of their dashes - but they had accurate dots in number, just machine gun fast.
>>  
>> If I had a choice of copying a long WX broadcast from a machine or from a good operator, I'd always go with the good operator, and my favorite keys to copy were the sideswiper (double speed key) or the Vibroplex - a well sent Vibroplex was a joy to copy - and I'd not copy the machine sent WX broadcast.  Also machine sent broadcast at 27 WPM was easier to copy than a boring one (same content) at 16 WPM.  Been there, done that.
>>  
>> 73
>>  
>> DR
>> N1EA
>>  
>>  
>> On Sat, Feb 19, 2022 at 9:34 PM Hans Brakob <kzerohb at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hopefully I won’t get excommunicated or circumcised for this, but I LIKE a fist that’s personalized a bit.  Think KH6IJ or W4KFC in old time SS drills.
>>  
>> Sterile machine-grade morse is for machines to copy. 
>>  
>>  
>> 73, de Hans, KØHB
>> “Just a Boy and his Radio”™
>>  
>>  
>>  
>> From: Bill Lanahan
>> Sent: Saturday, February 19, 2022 21:56
>> To: CW Reflector
>> Subject: Re: [CW] Sending Better Morse!
>>  
>> Today you’d have a lot more room in your sea bag if you just loaded the Precision CW Fistcheck app, by our own DJ7HS. You could hear, see, and get timing stats for every dit/dah/space and then play back an exact copy of your sending to hear what other guy heard (or would have to suffer through). 
>>  
>> BTW what’s a black and white TV lol. 
>>  
>> If new technology like Fistcheck can get me sending half as good as your fist, I’ll be delighted. 
>>  
>> 73 wa2nfn
>>  
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>  
>> 
>> On Feb 19, 2022, at 3:33 PM, David J. J. Ring, Jr. <n1ea at arrl.net> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 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).
>> 
>> 
>> 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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