[CW] Difference between Amateur and Commercial Morse Exams

[Dr Jim Kennedy]

I remember taking my FCC Radiotelegraph 2nd code sending test in the New York City FCC field office. After taking the written technical test, which was not multiple choice and contained schematics with errors, was given and corrected, and after several minutes it was marked PASSED. After passing the receiving test I then began the code sending part of the test  I was handed a card with the text that I was to send. I started and the FCC examiner said “not fast enough son, pick up the pace.” I did so and finally passed the test. It was nothing like todays multiple choice questions and no code amateur radio testing of today.

Well that was a bygone age. Now my hearing is going and I have arthritis in my wrist, but still love the code and spend 75% of my on air time on CW. 

73, K2PHD
Dr. Jim Kennedy

 



Sent from my iPad

> On Apr 30, 2025, at 4:15 PM, D.J.J. Ring, Jr. <n1ea at arrl.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> What a mistake elimination the Morse sending test was, and changing the Morse receiving test to the equivalent of the watered down Amateur Extra code multiple choice test from the ITU international treaty requirement which was "sending and receiving at least one continuous minute without error, English at 20 words per minute and five (5) letter cipher groups at 16 groups per minute.
> 
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> After this was changed we had radio officers on ships who COULD NOT copy SOS calls sent out on 500 kHz by ships in distress.
> 
> 
> I communicated with one such Radio Officer who requested a relay of his daily messages to the Company because both Slidell Radio WNU and Mobile, Alabama Radio WLO couldn't copy him. I soon found out it wasn't a matter of signal strength but it was the incomprehensible was he was sending. He was sending like a typical ham operator - extra dots and dashes and no spaces. It was a true nightmare to copy him. I finally told him QSD QRK NIL and shut my station down for the night.
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> Applicants for the Radiotelegraph license were previously failed if they couldn't send well. People's lives depended on their radio officer's ability to send and receive Morse.
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> When I first operated from a ship, I was on as second operator on TT WILLIAMSBURGH/WGOA and I called Galveston Radio/KLC on 500 kHz, he answered and told me to shift to my working frequency of 468 kHz and he'd respond on his working frequency of 484 kHz. KLC KLC DE WGOA WGOA QTC5 K // WGOA DE KLC QRV K.  And confidently - even though this was my first commercial CW QSO - I started sending my messages and KLC kept interrupting me asking for repeats of what I had sent.
> 
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> At the time I had been an Amateur Extra licensee for seventeen years and I was a proud member of the First-class CW Operator's club and was well regarded as an excellent operator.  An excellent Amateur Radio operator perhaps but not even a competent commercial Radiotelegraph operator. I was running all my words and letters together.
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> I finished my first radiogram and expected KLC to QSL my message but he didn't respond!
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> The chief operator of WGOA told me KLC had dumped me because of my poor spacing. He told me I sounded like an amateur, that my sending was undecipherable. I licked my wounds, secured the starion, turned on the auto alarm receiver, and went to lunch as it was 1200. I returned at 1500 for the afternoon watch, called GALVESTON RADIO KLC shifted up to 468/484 and sent my five messages, this time giving double the space between words (before my spaces were slightly longer than the spacing between letters.
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> I was humbled but I became a better operator because of it.
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> 
> 73
> David N1EA
> 
> --
> 
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