[QCWA] McElroy

[Jeffrey D Angus]

Bob West wrote:

> I'm not sure WHO counts code speed that way.
>
> For the purpose of Amateur VE exams we count 5 characters as
> one word. The letters count as one, the digits, punctuation,
> and prosigns count as 2. Nothing about spaces. 

By the way, THE correct way to measure code speed is as follows.
Shamelessly stolen from http://www.ac6v.com/morseaids.htm but at
least I did give credit and a link.

What I found interesting, was I was right in my original thoughts on this.
But I found this site to verify my suspicions.

Jeff
wa6fwi

Character Spacing and Calculating Morse Code Speed

The word PARIS is the standard to determine CW code speed. Each dit is
one element, each dah is three elements, intra-character spacing is one
element, inter-character spacing is three elements and inter-word spacing is
seven elements. The word PARIS is exactly 50 elements. Note that after each
dit/dah of the letter P -- one element spacing is used except the last one.
(Intra-Character). After the last dit of P is sent, 3 elements are added 
(Inter-
Character). After the word PARIS - 7 elements are used. Thus:

P
di da da di
1 1 3 1 3 1 1 (3) = 14 elements
A
di da
1 1 3 (3) = 8 elements
R
di da di
1 1 3 1 1 (3) = 10 elements
I
di di
1 1 1 (3) = 6 elements
S
di di di
1 1 1 1 1 [7] = 12 elements
Total = 50 elements
() = intercharacter
[] = interword

If you send PARIS 5 times in a minute (5WPM) you have sent 250 elements
(using correct spacing). 250 elements into 60 seconds per minute = 240 
milli-
seconds per element.

13 words-per-minute is one element every 92.31 milliseconds.




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