Ron, In 1971 in Germany in the Army Signal Corps, we convinced our COL to upgrade us to a 90 WPM RTTY machine so we wouldn't get stalled by the sluggish nature of the 60WPM. To this day, I wonder how I typed that fast as I sure suck today! Noisy is was!!!
73, Bill K9YEQ -----Original Message----- From: elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net [mailto:elecraft-boun...@mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of Ron D'Eau Claire Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2012 5:02 PM To: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Ultimatic keying I learned to type that way in High School too but what really taught me to keep a steady pace was pounding away on an old Model 15 RTTY keyboard in the Army. As each key was pressed the keyboard locked while the mechanical encoder cycled before another key could be pressed. Fortunately it was pretty noisy so one learned to hear the mechanism cycle and knew just when the next key could be pressed. Tapping one foot worked well too :-) 99.99% of my operating is CW rag chewing. We may be a diminishing "breed", but there are still plenty of us out there to provide some really nice hours on the bands. That got me nostalgic for the old Model 15 "rattle" so I looked and, sure 'nough, someone has one running on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWa6u5_Itvs The trick is to keep that rhythm for maximum inputting speed on the keyboard. 73, Ron AC7AC -----Original Message----- Same thing with a CW keyboard. Typing was taught in high school by rhythm and thus typing the next character at the right time was easy. With one key rollover, one can just about forget the need for a buffer. I really pity the person who is trying to learn to use a dual lever paddle from scratch with any type of keying logic. My perception is that squeezing timing is much more unnatural and difficult to achieve than back and forth "slapping". Of course, the rest of the CW world has mastered it, so it's obviously not impossible. I think your survey needs to include how many really CW ragchew. That number has got to be small. All of this stuff becomes unnecessary if one just engages in 599 73 QSO's. 73 de Brian/K3KO ______________________________________________________________ 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 ______________________________________________________________ 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
