Dan, WG4S wrote: It got WAYYYYYY worse. This guy was on a bug, set for 35 WPM I'd guess. But being polite, he was sending 13 WPM to match the first op. 13 WPM Dashes and 35 WPM dots, spaced for about 16 WPM.
My head is hurting just writing this down. I think I could have gotten copy on the Hand Key, but the bug never made any sense. It was just a different Morse code than what I know. ---------------- Unfortunately, that's pretty common among bug users. Vibroplex is arguably the most common Bug in use today, and they made a LOT of bugs that won't slow down under 25 wpm. For some reason they built 'em with different springs! A bunch of us with Vibroplexes have compared notes on that subject and micrometers disclosed a wide variety of spring thicknesses. The original owner of my bug, a commercial operator at coastal station KPH, put a cable clamp on the thing to get it down under 20 wpm, which he had to do to use it on the commercial circuits handling traffic with ships at sea. Many of the shipboard operators (the guys with the "swing" Vic mentioned) couldn't copy any better than they could send. I find it very irritating when the dits and dah's are not in proper relationship, but I learned CW as a form of "music" with the proper spacing. Hearing it all messed up with "machine gun dits" and varying cadence is like someone singing off key. I can usually figure out the tune, but it isn't pleasant to hear. My favorite key is a Speed-X bug that has a great weight arrangement lets me immediately dial in the proper dit speed for anything from 17 wpm on up. For slower speeds there's my J-38 hand pump. Someone mentioned practicing using one of the code reader programs. That's a great idea, as is recording yourself and then listening to it a few days later to see if that's a fist you'd enjoy copying <G>. Bottom line, if you aren't using a keyboard, practice is important. Maybe less so using a keyer, but still worth while. After 50+ years of pounding brass I still practice sending regularly. Usually I send a page out of the phone book, addresses, numbers and all. Ron AC7AC _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] 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
