[Qcwa] Conversation...

[Joseph Fenn]

I am with NORM on this one.   He didnt mention that some of the
Aussies and "Kiwis" still know how to do CW with sideswippers and
I swear 30 mins qso with one of those guys will get you drunker than
3 fast beers,  but its entirely loveable.   I also like beer!
I used homebrew sideswipper for about 10 years both on CW for the
military and for the Airlines.    It was an art all by itself.
Now if they made the CW test mandatory on a sideswiper, that would
end ham radio for all time of course.  Did I mention I was born
"left handed" and write with left hand, but purposefully I forced
myself to do the CW bit with my right hand.  This paid off later
with the  airlines as most of the cw ops were right handed from
birth, and a requirement was that you had to "service" the msg
you were sending without missing a dit or a dah.  Now sending with
ones normal hand (left or right) was no problem but simultaneously
servicing the msg (which required writing your 2 letter sine,
the receivers 2 letter sinde, and the time without halting the
cw sending process was really a task.   Doing it on a sideswiper
was 100% more difficult.  Do this for 8 hours shift at 40wpm
or better and you sleep well at night.
                      Joe/KH6JF
(ps if you hesitated anywhere in the process more than twice in
 a 1 hour period, you were called a LID and instructed by the
 opr on the other end to get a qualified radio opr on line before
 he would accept any more of your nonsense)
viva la CW


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