Andrew, NV1B wrote: I've run into a handful than can copy 100, and I remember about 10 years ago I was in disbelief when a guy on a 2m repeater told me he could do over 100, so I put him on the spot and cranked up my computer's CW speed to 100, asked him a question in CW over the repeater, and he answered. Holy cow.
----------- He ought to get hold of Guinness and a few others and claim his fame. As the record books stand today, the world's record for code reception "by ear" was set on July 2, 1939 by Ted R. McElroy, giving him the title of Official Champion Radio Operator at the Asheville Code Tournament in North Carolina. The latest information I can find says that his record of 75.2 wpm has stood ever since. That's "head copy" of course. When the test began, McElroy is reported to have astounded the audience by calmly sipping a cup of coffee then lighting an cigarette while the transmission blasted away before sitting down at the mill (typewriter with all cap letters specifically for copying CW). Then he is reported to have kept typing 15 minutes after the transmission ended to finish transcribing the entire text. Obviously, a good memory was helpful! I'm a little surprised that McElroy's official record hasn't been challenged. Is anyone out there aware of any official records kept today? Guinness doesn't seem to list a CW record. As others pointed out, the K2 is designed with a specific rise and fall time when keying CW that keeps the bandwidth occupied to a minimum at typical keying speeds, but which begins to limit the efficiency and readability of CW at super-high speeds. That's pretty typical of modern "CW" rigs. High speed CW (HSCW) is, as far as I've read, all done via SSB. That is, the rig isn't keyed, but the CW is sent by a tone injected into the audio (microphone) input of an SSB rig. That produces a "CW" signal consisting of a single transmitted frequency, since no carrier and only one sideband is transmitted. The transmit frequency is offset from the carrier by the frequency of the modulating tone. Computers are used to generate the keyed CW tone and record the received signals. Live operators still read the stuff, but only after it's been slowed down to a suitable "human" speed. This CW sometimes gets to astronomical speeds. A "ping" of signal produced by a meteor trail often is less than one second, but complete exchanges are sometimes done in a ping or two! Even slowed down, it's not easy copy usually. Mega-warble, noise and fragmentary bits of signal way below the noise level make copy at least as much a challenge as any other mode. The greater than 2 kHz bandwidth of a SSB rig is adequate to pass the keying and sidebands produced by HSCW. Instead of sidebands some tens of Hz from the carrier like most of us generate keying our K1's, K2's and KX1's in CW mode, high speed CW sidebands can extend several hundred Hz out from the "carrier" (modulating) frequency. The keying speeds, in words per minute, run from 100 to 800 wpm, typically, although I've heard of speeds up to 3,200 wpm (16,000 characters per minute) being used. A K2 with the SSB option is certainly capable of doing it. Just add an Elecraft XV transverter and join the meteor scatter crowd straining for pings... Ron AC7AC _______________________________________________ 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
