[Elecraft] OT: Decoding high speed CW

[Peter Pauly]

I ordered a LP-Pan 2 and the requisite accessories. I also installed
MorseRunner and am attempting to improve my speed. Thanks everyone for your
help.

On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 7:45 PM, Ron D'Eau Claire <ron at cobi.biz> wrote:

> In the 1950's the U.S. 2nd class commercial Radiotelegraph license exam
> required 20 wpm sending and receiving. Receiving was 5 character random
> groups that included all punctuation and most of the special characters you
> see above the numbers on a keyboard. After 6 months of sea duty as an
> assistant radio officer, one could apply for a First Class license that
> required the same but at 25 wpm. I don't recall how long we had to copy,
> just the elation LS experienced at passing, Hi!
>
> In our work we had to have excellent character-by-character copy, usually
> pounding keys on a mill. Contesting is a bit like that except that in a
> contest one has a planned format and very short message as contrasted so,
> say, copying press (news) for half an hour at a time.
>
> I'm not surprised at the speeds one hears in contests. When rag-chewing,
> however, I seldom find stations running more than 20 wpm, often much less.
> And I often just "read the mail" in my head listening to CW rag chews while
> puttering around the shack.
>
> IMHO, the different uses for CW lend themselves to different learning
> techniques. I have met good, competent contest operators completely unable
> to have a QSO that is not a contest exchange. They simply cannot think
> conversationally at a key or paddle. On a keyboard they often revert to a
> brag tape and must QRT when it runs out. And of course, everyone seems to
> go
> through a bit of a learning curve to copy CW in their head.
>
> After all these years 99% of my operating is still CW. I joke that I spent
> so much time learning CW that I am determined to get as much value from the
> effort. (It's not entirely a joke, Hi!)
>
> 73 Ron AC7AC
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Elecraft [mailto:elecraft-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of
> lstavenhagen
> Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2016 10:32 AM
> To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] OT: Decoding high speed CW
>
> Excellent points, IMO. I took both types of code tests. For my novice in
> 1973 when I was 10 years old, it was the random groups at 5WPM format.
> IIRC,
> I achieved the 1-min-solid-copy requirement by some miraculously slim
> margin.
> It was something like 2 or 3 characters and I remember being extremely
> relieved and elated at the accomplishment.
>
> For the Extra, years later, it was when the content was a regular old QSO,
> so I had virtually completely solid copy of the whole thing; the written
> test was nearly my downfall in that case (I passed with like 71% or
> something).
>
> Finally, IIRC, licenses like the commercial radiotelegraph license had even
> more comprehensive requirements - something like 5 minutes of random groups
> at 20wpm, 5 minutes of plain language at 25wpm, or something like that,
> depending on what class of license you were going for. Pretty tough!
>
> So yes it seems to be well established that plain language is quite
> distinct
> from random letter/number groups with respect to copy speed. And it was
> tested accordingly, or at least in my opinion it was.
>
> Fortunately, now that CW isn't required at all has seemed to, ironically,
> started a revival in CW. The CW portions of the bands do seem to still be
> more sparse than the SSB portions, but they're still there....
>
> 73,
> LS
> W5QD
>
>
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