I used to copy press off the air in the 50's. As the lone Flight Test ground controller for Lockheed Aircraft Service, it helped fill in the time between condition checks with planes aloft and preparing meteorological reports. We used both HF AM and CW in those days. The "press" was sent from punched paper tape, I believe. It ran at a very steady 20 wpm.
In my experience, "High speed" (>20 wpm) was ONLY used between a relatively few stations in which the same ops communicated with each other constantly. >From what I've read, some of those ops really "screamed", but they were the exception. They were usually government or military circuits and, before teletype become common after WWII, occasionally between shore stations moving traffic to where it could be passed onto the proper ship by a coastal station. On any "open circuit" intended for general consumption - like a press broadcast - 20 wpm or even less was run. After all, all ops had to copy without "fills" and the ops were only required to be able to copy 20 wpm. International stuff going from shore stations to ships at sea was often much slower - 15 wpm or less. Indeed, some commercial stations welded the weights on the operator's "bugs" in place to hold the speeds down at all times. They wanted absolutely consistent speed, no matter which operator might be on the shift, and chose a speed that they felt every operator on any ship or station could copy, no matter how "green". Radio station KPH on the US west coast (north of San Francisco) is regularly put on the air thanks to a dedicated group of hams/ex station operators. When the station is active, they often send a press tape that hams can copy on the short wave and medium frequency (600 meter) band. Check http://tinyurl.com/3fvgz for more information about them. They often put the old station on the air on New Year's eve. I don't know what this year's plans are. A really fun book documenting the adventures of "Sparks" - marine radio operators - is "Sparks What's Going On?" It's a 300 page compendium of anecdotes and reminiscences by radio operators who sailed the high seas in the heyday of CW communications. It's filled with personal notes and stories of humorous encounters such as the time the ship Queen Elizabeth passed Gibraltar one night. A Morse blinker on the rock flashed out, "What ship?" The QE replied, "What rock?" "Sparks What's Going On?" was published by Sylvester Focking, DH4PB. For more information see: http://tinyurl.com/4yewb Sylvester also published some CD's containing actual examples of CW on the High Seas between ships and ships and shore stations. It includes an actual SOS call that, to this day, still produces a chill when I hear it. 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
