Excellent points, IMO. I took both types of code tests. For my novice in 1973 when I was 10 years old, it was the random groups at 5WPM format. IIRC, I achieved the 1-min-solid-copy requirement by some miraculously slim margin. It was something like 2 or 3 characters and I remember being extremely relieved and elated at the accomplishment.
For the Extra, years later, it was when the content was a regular old QSO, so I had virtually completely solid copy of the whole thing; the written test was nearly my downfall in that case (I passed with like 71% or something). Finally, IIRC, licenses like the commercial radiotelegraph license had even more comprehensive requirements - something like 5 minutes of random groups at 20wpm, 5 minutes of plain language at 25wpm, or something like that, depending on what class of license you were going for. Pretty tough! So yes it seems to be well established that plain language is quite distinct from random letter/number groups with respect to copy speed. And it was tested accordingly, or at least in my opinion it was. Fortunately, now that CW isn't required at all has seemed to, ironically, started a revival in CW. The CW portions of the bands do seem to still be more sparse than the SSB portions, but they're still there.... 73, LS W5QD -- View this message in context: http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/OT-Decoding-high-speed-CW-tp7615612p7615678.html Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to arch...@mail-archive.com
