[Elecraft] Fastest: paddle or bug?

[tlogan7@cox.net]

Ron - 
Your reply was extremely interesting to me.  Many of us on here (I think) do not have the background or were too "young" (depending on when commercial use of cw stopped) to have been aware of commercial cw operations. I would be absolutely fascinated to hear a little bit about your background in this area. could you give a little history?

I take it you currently use a bug? Have you used a paddle as well and chosen to use a bug? How hard do you think it would be for someone who has learned on a paddle to try out a bug? All thoughts would be most appreciated.

Wayne and Eric - hope this is OK discussion for the reflector - just let me know if not. Thanks
73/Tim Logan NZ7C
> On commercial circuits I never worked much over 25 wpm. I knew only a
> few ops who did. Those lucky stiffs worked on some circuit where they
> exchanged traffic with the same operator at the other end all the time,
> so they could develop whatever speed suited both of them. But many
> commercial outfits frowned on that practice. Indeed, in the early days
> commercial installations welded the weights in place on the bugs so the
> ops had to stay at one uniform speed - usually around 15 wpm.
> 
> On the maritime bands the pride of proficiency was in reading some of
> the absolutely ghastly fists out there on the "high seas". Accuracy was
> far more important than speed, because "repeats" slowed down the traffic
> more than a slow fist. Time = money, and more messages got passed at 15
> wpm with no fills than one could hope for at 35 wpm followed by repeats
> to fill in gaps. So true "high speed" CW was always more of a "hobby"
> than anything else, and lucky were those ops who could pursue it on the
> job on a regular basis!