I have no personal memories as I am a relatively recent amateur. However, when I was growing up, one of our family friends was Thomas Roberts, a Captain for Pan American Airways. Tom got his start in the airline industry as a radio operator on the China Clippers. As I recall, and others will probably be able to verify some of this, the commercial news services used to transmit high speed code. I don't know what speed they used, but I recall that it was mechanically generated and very fast. He, and others of his generation, were able to copy the news broadcasts by ear. I can recall him pounding on a typewriter copying code and having the transmission stop well before he stopped typing. He never could type as fast as he could copy.
As I can copy about 13-15 wpm under ideal conditions, I can only imagine what it must have been like copying code on the China Clippers with early radios and lots of electrical and mechanical noise from the plane, itself. Howard Ashcraft, W1WF -----Original Message----- From: Thom R. Lacosta [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, December 10, 2004 3:52 PM To: elecraft@mailman.qth.net Subject: [Elecraft] OT-Preserving CW memories >From time to time I make a post reminding folks that there's a web site >where the content comes from a submarine radio operator (www.zerobeat.net/submarine) . I'd love to do a similar site with the memories and stories of folks who made their living pounding brass, whether aboard ship, at a Coast Station, Police Communications, Railroard or other venues. Yep...it appears that hardly anyone does any of the above now, and I'd like to preserve your memories on the web so that those of use that use and enjoy cw have a frame of reference other than amateur radio....when you're not around, you'll take those memories with you. If ya have a mind to, drop me an email....I'll be happy to turn it into HTML and devote as much space on the server as it takes to tell the story of the magical music. 73,Thom-k3hrn www.zerobeat.net Home of QRP Web Ring, Drakelist home page, Free Classified Ads for amateur radio, QRP IRC channel Elecraft Owners Database www.tlchost.net/ Web Hosting as low as 3.49/month _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
