[Elecraft] OT Learning Morse anew

[Doug Smith]

I was one of the last Radio Officers to sail an all CW ship.  It was the SS Tampa Bay, call sign KNJA.  We worked our way up and down the South American coasts from ports in the US gulf coast. 

I mainly worked WLO on 16 and 22 MHz. We typically hummed along around 30 WPM due to the requirement for perfect copy in both directions. I once made a mistake -- spelled a guys name wrong by one letter (Johnson vs. Johnsen or some such thing) and I really caught hell from The Old Man. That didn't happen again!

One day I was just doing a poor job of sending and had to keep correcting myself. After all the traffic was sent I apologized to the shore station op. He said, "Are you kidding? You have the best fist I've copied all day." Nice guy, made me feel much better about my sloppy sending. I have little doubt he was a Ham.  

You can see a pic of a typical shipboard radio room of that era at:
  http://www.w7kf.com/Articles/Rigs/ITTMackay3020A.html

Fond memories...

73,
Doug, W7KF


> On Jun 12, 2017, at 5:33 PM, Ron D'Eau Claire <ron at cobi.biz> wrote:
> 
> I've seen commercial ship/shore traffic running very slow due to a shipboard
> operator who was not proficient at CW. The shore station had to run equally
> slow, no matter how painful.