[QCWA] Oldtimers

[Norm Gertz]

Joe......often when conditions were poor we could not use the high speed 
slip recording and we were required to go to manual operation and use a bug.
The signal re tape was "PBY" which stood for "pull back yard" and when 
conditions were poor we did a lot of pulling back.
All of our operators could read slip much faster than aural CW but it all 
phased out starting in 42 with the advent of "radiotype" .  IBM set up a row 
of positions down the middle of the radio station and the printers were the 
old original "selectomatic" typwriters that sounded like a machine gun at 
110wpm.  The keys hit the roller so hard that at times the font head flew 
off.
They had a lot of bugs to work out and whenever one of the positions went 
down they reverted to the old CW positions.

Didnt know that Bob Nouf was ex WAR but there are a few QCWA types like W0US 
,VA3ZBB and W2RRY who were there with me.

73   Norm  K1AA


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joseph Fenn" <jfenn at lava.net>
To: "Discussion of QCWA" <qcwa at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 4:14 PM
Subject: Re: [QCWA] Oldtimers


> Hank,
> Wow you had some mountains to climb.  I was a CCC ro in Fla.
> at the time I got a msg from the WW1 Master Sgt in benning
> and he asked me to come straight to Benning and call him when
> I arrived in the tent city were the possible new recruits
> were waiting.     I did'nt do a day in basic training, they
> put me to work on the mid shift at WUO right after I was sworn in.
> I could do about35 wpm at the time.   Later on at WVN in San Juan
> we worked WAR direct, but not with a bug.  We sent code to them
> at about 350 or 400 WPM useing Boehme equipment.    I/E we could
> crank the speed up to whatever we wanted long as Radio condx were
> ok.    If a repeat from a certain point was necessary, we used
> to breakin on WAR and use the "pb" (pullback) command.   They
> would pull their tape back a yard or so and continue on.
> We got it all on a paper tape which rode accross the top of our
> typewriter at whatever speed we could sight read the stuff.
> Most of our RO's could read the tape much faster than on the
> air CW.  We averaged reading/typing speed at about 75 wpm.
> We had a foot pedal so could increase the speed of the tape
> as it passed in front of our eyes.  Them was the days!!!!
> I know several guys on QCWA like Bob Nouf who were probably
> working me direct from WAR.
>                    Joe
>
>
>
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