[Elecraft] Re: Human CW copy speed

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

I have a commercial CW license but I used it to service shipboard and
aircraft CW equipment (yes, long ago airliners used CW to keep in touch with
the ground, especially when crossing the oceans). I never stood watches as a
regular CW operator - just the occasional shakedown cruise aboard various
ships along the west coast of the USA. But I had a great friend, K6ETY, who
was a maritime radio operator in the merchant marine throughout WWII.
Finally, in the 1970's he came ashore to stay working a regular CW operator
at coastal station KPH north of San Francisco. I often worked that facility
on CW doing radio checks from various ships. I visited Les at KPH one day.
He took me around the operating positions introducing me to his buddies in
what was called the "Den of Thieves" - the CW communications room in the
basement of the receiving facility at KPH. I'll never forget his speaking to
one of the operators who was sitting there with CW pouring out of the "cans"
on his head and pounding on a mill (typewriter with all upper-case letters
used for copying radiograms). The guy jumped up and shook my hand and we
spoke for a bit, all the while I could  hear the CW still bleating forth
from the cans (commercial operators wore the cans forward of their ears with
the volume up fairly high rather than on their ears so it was quite audible
for a couple of feet around). After we talked for what seemed like quite a
while he said "'cuse me" and reached for his bug to send "R" and then turned
back to me while the CW continued almost without pause. 

When we quit chatting he sat back down and wailed at an incredible rate on
that mill, finishing the message we had interrupted, pulled the finished
message from the roller, inserted a new form and caught up to where the
station was now sending. Mind you, this included dates, message numbers,
word counts, addresses, phone numbers and the like in addition to the text,
all of which he was storing in his head while we talked. 

It reminded me that a commercial license does not make a true professional
operator. I was and still am a "Radio Amateur" in awe of what some real
operators can do!

KPH has a web site with many pictures of the CW operations there as they
were from time the station was first launched in the 1920's up through the
heyday of maritime CW in the 1960's and 70's. 

See http://www.radiomarine.org/kph-proj.html

And at:
http://www.radiomarine.org/historic-5.html

You'll see my old friend, Les, in the top picture. If you work me today I
may well be using that bug he has on the table (note the weight to slow it
down. Yes, that's a real cable clamp needed to keep it down under 20 wpm -
just like I use). Les became an SK in the 1990's and  his widow passed his
key on to me.  

Ron AC7AC