[Elecraft] Bad fist

[vze3v8dt at verizon.net]

Funny story about this.  I was at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.  Great science museum for kids of all ages!  They have at least three or four places where you can try sending some code.  One was a spark gap, one was an old railroad telegraph "sender" and one used the MFJ-461 or similar.  They had an old oak desk that was probably reminiscent of the one from a telegraph office and an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of paper with the typical Morse Code alphabet.  

Kids were sitting there trying to look up a letter and send it then look up another letter and send it.  Invariably it printed a bunch of erroneous characters (lots of "E" and "T" characters, go figure) on the display.  I'm sure the kid thought it was "broken".  My XYL told me to send her a message, which I did, and it apparently displayed the message quite well (based on my XYL's response, I didn't look at the display).  One kid was amazed and asked me how I was able to do that without looking at the chart.  Ah, lots of practice!

Mark, NK8Q

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>The MFJ-461 Morse Code Reader (~$80) is a very nice tool to improve the  
>quality of one's CW operations. It will improve your fist if you   monitor your 
>own sending.