[Elecraft] Keyer weighting

[Fred Jensen]

On 8/22/2013 3:17 PM, Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:
> In my experience with commercial (and to a lesser extent Military) CW
> operations, one of the most important skills an operator had to have was the
> ability to copy a huge variety of fists, speeds, spacing and weighing.

Indeed Ron, and believe me, in 56/57, the year I worked coastal marine, 
the menagerie of fists afloat were exceeded only by the combinations of 
carrier whine, whine superimposed on the MCW, drift, and chirp.  It 
wasn't uncommon for the chirp to take it from one side of the passband 
to the other, hence the MCW [which also chirped some].  If the dits 
were, on average, more or less shorter than the dahs, it was a good day. 
:-)  I know the reasons for all this, and I forgive all of them, but it 
all did make copy a challenge.  And, since people were paying ... a lot 
... to have their messages sent *and* received correctly, correct copy 
was essential.

The other coast stations, the Coast Guard, and the few Navy stations on 
the other hand were impeccable and precise, and thoroughly QRQ.  I was 
relaying a wx summary to NMO once, it was sort of longish and boring, as 
wx summaries tended to be then.  I was loping along at around 23-24 on 
my J-36 by Lionel, and he broke and said, "QRQ OK"  My sending limit on 
my bug was about 30-32, and he got it all.  Really great operators!

The good news is that I learned to recognize ships by their sound and 
ops by their fist before I ever heard their call. :-)  The surprising 
thing to me then and still now is that the ham CW bands were filled with 
generally stable signals, some mild chirps occasionally, and a few key 
clicks ... and generally very good fists if the ships were to be the 
standard.  They still are.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2013 Cal QSO Party 5-6 Oct 2013
- www.cqp.org