[Elecraft] CW discussion

[John Veach]

CW lived not only with the older generation, but was going strong in the
military until about 10 years ago.   My oldest son, KB4SCV, enlisted in the
Air Force in 1991.  As a ham, the Air Force discovered he knew CW and
promptly made him a CW intercept operator. They sent him off to
Massachusetts to the multi service CW school.  When he returned on leave, he
assured me that when we worked CW he would slow down for me. I found him
copying +25wpm and carrying on a conversation with me simultaneously.
Rather frustrating for a guy who thought he was a pretty hot cw op and had
carried his extra class ticket for many years at that time.  The kid got
sent to Italy to a listening station in San Vito.  After about 12 months,
the Air Force, and all the rest, downsized their CW ops, closing several of
these listening posts around the world.  Sean got out and came home to West
Palm Beach.  I took him to a hamfest the first weekend he was home and he
took and passed the 20 wpm code test with no errors. Of course, he never
upgraded, let the CSCE expire and to this day is a tech plus.
We have not only the WWII guys to tap into for this information, but lots of
folks up until about 1992,1993 who served as CW ops in the military.

John KE4D