[QCWA] CW

[B Roske]

The following is an excerpt from an account originally published in "The ARC".  The news letter of the Asheville Amateur Radio Club of North Carolina dated August 2, 1939.  I copied it from "The Spark Gap Times", October 2005.

CW - LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT

 

It seems likely that the Morse code requirement for amateur licensing will be eliminated.  To many it is a second language that is music to their ears.  Others consider it a noise and a nuisance.

 

Old Old Timers club member Harry Robinson, W4BC - 1929 now W2AZ, says he was standing beside Ted McElroy as he set a new CW coping record during a special completion on July 2, 1939.  Harry is one or four or five remaining eye witnesses from that historic day.



The code machine had been adjusted to take high speed and the judges made sure the text had been sealed and was intact just as it was received from the FCC office in Boston.  W4HX sends a few preliminary centimeters of tape through the machine and the contestants adjust their 'cans'.  One can observe intense concentration in the faces of all the contestants.  W4HX glances at his stop watch and says, "Ready", pulls a switch and the code contest destined to make history begins.

 

The machine is hitting up to 40 wpm and McElroy and McDonald, W4CRV and one or two others are transcribing effortlessly.  Then W4HX, at the machine, steps it up to 45 wpm.  One or two contestants sigh, and take off their "cans".  At 50 wpm, the staccato clicks of the typewriters at the far end of the table become piano, then pianissimo.  Now there are only two contestants left plus McElroy.

 

At 55wpm, they increase their tempo but W4CRV slackens noticeably and resigns himself to the inevitable.  All the while, McElroy and McDonald seem to be playing a symphony with four hands, so perfectly that their typing seems to blend into one cacophony of sound.

 

As the machine is stepped up to 60 wpm the silence among the spectators becomes almost eerie.  The machine drones on and the two contestants pound relentlessly.

 

At 65 wpm, they are approaching the world's record.  Bulldog like, McDonald hangs on as McElroy is keeping even rhythm.  At 70 wpm there is discord in the typing of the two contestants.  A glance of the eye reveals that McDonald is losing his timing but McElroy with only a momentary pause to adjust, gathers more momentum,  McDonald takes off his 'cans' and moves a shaking hand across a perspiring brow and concedes victory to McElroy.

 

Meanwhile, the machine does not stop.  At 75 wpm McElroy, having already eclipsed his former record of 69 wpm at Boston, Massachusetts in 1935, tires and slackens his speed.  At 80 wpm, he copies furiously for a breath or two and then halts the movement of his hands on the keyboard.

 

Amid the silence, W4HZ stops the machine and the full impact of the occasion dawns upon the gallery.  There is an almost deafening volume of applause, a new record in receiving code has been established.

 

Harry is also a QCWA Member.  I read somewhere that Ted McElroy could type 150 wpm. I wonder how fast he could have gone with an electric typewriter.



73,

Bob N0UF