[Elecraft] Fastest: paddle or bug?

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Tim wrote: 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
===========================
One of my best friends and radio "Elmers" was LR. In his later years LR
was a operator at coastal station KPH. There's a picture of him at:
http://www.radiomarine.org/historic-5.html. (Top picture).  Notice that
cable clamp he is using for a weight on his Vibroplex bug! His widow
gave me his bug when LR died. I put a similar cable clamp on it and
noted that it runs at about 17 or 18 wpm with it on. That was a very
common speed on the commercial circuits. 

"TR" (WB6TMY) wrote me off-line saying:  "If you ever get a chance to
visit KPH...there is a picture on the wall that proclaims in big letters
"Speed Kills."  Hi Hi "  Like my buddy LR, TR was also at KPH. 

I consider myself incredibly lucky to have been able to mess with CW
commercially just a bit. I was not a long-time career radio op, but I
was in it in the 1950's and again in the 90's. Whenever posts like Tim's
comes up I remember how lucky I was to have been there for a bit at
least. 

Recently a buddy of mine, Mychael, AA3WF (the toroidguy), had his 40th
birthday. I sent him a letter. I hope he won't mind if I share part of
that letter with everyone on this reflector who loves CW and who dreams
of the days commercial CW, because it's really a letter for loves CW and
tinkering with radios. Here's part of what I wrote him:

"So right about now everyone's telling you how OLD being 40 is... From
where I sit if there is a problem, it is that you are too young, not too
old. 

"Think about it. When you were born, Heinrich Hertz who proved that
"radio" waves existed, would have been 108 years old. Gugiliemo Marconi,
who proved that radio waves could be used for practical communications
would have been 88 years old. Edwin Armstrong, who invented the basic
radio receiver circuits that we still use in our cellular phones and
satellite receivers today, would have been 72 years old. 

"In 1962 the ships of the world carried "Sparky", the
not-always-affectionate name for the radio operator. The airwaves were
alive with Morse code transmissions alerting captains and crews to
danger, bringing world news, and mundane instructions from the "home
office". For better or worse, the captain of a ship was no longer a lone
commander plying the open sea, cut off from the rest of the world. The
Titanic disaster had seen to that exactly 50 years before. 

"When you were born, I was 24 years old. I was just old enough to know
the feeling of standing on the deck of a ship as it glided under the
Golden Gate bridge on its way into the open Pacific feeling the drumming
of it's engines through the steel plates under my feet. I was just young
enough to climb a mast in driving rain to replace a broken antenna wire,
and to hang on for my life as heavy seas rolled a big ship about like a
cork while trying desperately to get a water-soaked radar back into
operation.

"I've never felt too old, but barely old enough to know the pleasure of
hearing 'Hey Sparks!' and knowing that someone needed me. 

"While ships at sea now carry satellite telephones that make Sparky
obsolete, while the digital revolution makes the tinkerings of
'radiomen' like us in our home workshops seem archaic, the world will
always need people of our spirit. It's no accident that the short-wave
bands are still filled with Amateur Radio operators who savor the
enjoyment of Morse code every day. You may have been a bit too young to
pound brass on the high seas, but we are always creating new adventures.
In another twenty years you will have the pleasure of looking back on
them as I am doing today."

(Dang! This got long! I TOLD you all I was a rag-chewer..)

Ron AC7AC
K2 # 1289