[Elecraft] CW Program

Tue Jan 7 07:43:00 2003

Ron -
What a great story.........hearing that kind of story is probably one of my
favorite parts of cw. Sure wish I could have been there!!!! Thanks for
putting it on the reflector!

73/Tim NZ&C
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ron D'Eau Claire" <[email protected]>
To: "'Elecraft Reflector'" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, January 06, 2003 10:05 PM
Subject: RE: [Elecraft] CW Program

> 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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