[Elecraft] CW Program

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

One of my best friends and Elmers was a commercial op who, after
surviving WWII as a radio operator in the Merchant Marine and a couple
of decades thereafter at sea, ended up at RCA Coastal Station KPH in
California.  I stopped in one day to visit Les in the CW "dungeon" (in
the basement) with a cacophony of CW bleating out of receivers with
strings wrapped around their dials hooked to motors to make them tune
back and forth across the calling frequencies while a bunch of ops
wearing cans, "radioman style" on their heads with their ears clear so
they could talk at the same time were pounding away at "mills" (manual
typewriters designed for CW copy) and bugs receiving and sending
messages to ships.

My buddy, Les, wanted to introduce me to a friend of his. As we
approached his operating position, he was pounding away at the mill and
I stopped to wait for a break. Not needed. He saw us and jumped up still
wearing his "cans" with CW clearly blasting away. (Most commercial
"radiomen" wore their phones forward of their ears so they could hear
what was going on around them).  He introduced himself and we chatted
for half a minute. Suddenly he said, "cuse me.." sat down and sent "QSL"
on the bug and started flailing away like mad on the mill, completing
the message that he had copied in his head while he spoke with me. He
zipped it out of the Mill and put it on the message board while CW
continued to pour from his phones. He said "Goodbye" remembering my
name, while the next message continued to pour out of the cans and into
his head. By now I had no doubt that I was watching someone whose skill
I would only dream of in my sleep! 

As we walked away, Les just chuckled and said that he enjoys "showing
off". 

There are some pictures of that station, taken about the time I visited
there, at http://www.radiomarine.org/historic-5.html. That's my buddy
Les, "LR" in the top picture. When Les died in '92 his widow gave me
that Vibroplex bug in the picture that Les had carried with him at sea
and ashore. It is treasured. I make sure that it still gets used
regularly.

Ron AC7AC
K2 # 1289

My idol is the HAM/Rail-Road Dispatcher that knew both American and
International Morse code and could copy either at 30-40 WPM while
discussing the football game with you, and not miss a letter.  He said
the letters just went from his ears to the keys and he didn't have to
even think of them....Rich KE0X
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