In military and commercial brass pounding in the USA, we were limited to something between 13 and 20 wpm, usually closer to 13, because long studies demonstrated that slower is faster because of fewer mistakes copying every letter correctly on a keyboard or paper. And hearing whole "words" was a path to disaster if one was copying five letter code groups.
If I was caught trying to run an Army CW net above about 15 wpm I'd likely end up on KP for a month. (KP = kitchen police: cleaning kitchens, peeling potatoes, etc.) The object was to ensure that everyone on the circuit could copy perfectly the first time. In the "day" some commercial point-to-point circuits required the operators use the "company key" provided - a bug with the weights welded on for about 15 wpm just to keep the speeds down for faster message handling. I've seen commercial ship/shore traffic running very slow due to a shipboard operator who was not proficient at CW. The shore station had to run equally slow, no matter how painful. But Amateur Radio is a whole different world with different skills being most useful, skills such as head copy at 20 or 30 wpm. I enjoy "reading the mail" on CW while puttering around the shack, just as if listening to a voice transmission. And many Hams enjoy constantly pushing the envelope on speed just for the fun of it. Ham radio is, after all, a Hobby. If the other station copies the name as Don, not Ron, and the QTH as Forest Lawn (a cemetery in Los Angeles) and not Forest Grove (a town in Oregon), it's easily corrected on the next transmission. 73, Ron AC7AC -----Original Message----- From: elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net [mailto:elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of KENT TRIMBLE Sent: Monday, June 12, 2017 11:31 AM To: f...@fmeco.com; elecraft@mailman.qth.net Subject: Re: [Elecraft] OT Learning Morse anew One caveat, Fred . . . Traffic handlers MUST copy on paper or on a word processor. In my opinion, one is not a skilled telegrapher until one can copy in head and on paper with equal accuracy. 73, Kent K9ZTV On 6/12/2017 11:59 AM, Fred Moore wrote: > the moral... put down the pencil and paper. > > Fred Moore > ______________________________________________________________ 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
