[Elecraft] K2 CW speed

[N2EY at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/22/2005 2:51:15 PM Eastern Standard Time, Bill Coleman <aa4lr at arrl.net> writes:

>On Feb 22, 2005, at 1:16 PM, Andrew Moore wrote:
>The highest official CW speed was about 74 wpm, a record >that was set 
>decades ago and never overturned. If there's so many people >who can 
>copy north of 60 wpm, why has this record never been broken?

That was a record for hard copy - McElroy pounded out the copy on a *manual* typewriter! "Head copy" is a different animal. 

The folks who can copy 80-100 wpm or whatever aren't pounding keyboards with every received letter; they're listening to the code like someone talking.

How fast can the average person carry on a verbal 
conversation vs. transcribing one?

In highspeed contest operation, you're only looking for information in bursts - usually just call and report, maybe section/country. What McElroy was doing was for minutes at a time.

--

For comparison, consider the test for US Navy Radioman "A" class (IIRC) circa 1958: 

24 wpm 5 character code groups, copied on a manual typewriter (mill). Passing grade was a maximum of 3 errors.

In an hour.

73 de Jim, N2EY