This is a no-win argument because you'll never convince anyone who
thinks strongly one way or the other that he/she might not posses a
universal truth. But, the issue is really a matter of personal
experience and not someone else's opinion. My personal experience is
entirely opposite that expressed in Bill's note. I have been sending
code for 55 years, using straight keys, bugs, and iambic keying. And
there is no question that, for me, iambic keying is vastly -- I
repeat, vastly -- superior to the other methods. It is faster and,
once learned, simpler. For the most part, I also find that iambic
keying tends to lead to far better code -- although there are
notorious counterexamples here. Learning did not take me very long:
I was up and running almost immediately, requiring only a few days
"lone time" before I felt competent to go on the air at a decent
speed. Within a month I was quite easy with speeds in the 30s.
It is certainly not the case that "anyone can send twice as fast as
he can receive," a comment that demonstrably does not apply to many I
have encountered on the air, regardless of the method used. This is
a comment that may apply to those in their early stages of learning.
Of course, I am assuming here that "sending" is done by key and not
keyboard.
I have chimed in here against my better judgement because I feel this
is an issue that has to be solved by each individual. I know nothing
I say is going to change the minds of the "fundamentalists" on issues
like these, but for those who are still trying to figure out how the
wind blows, I simply say, "put up your own wetted finger and come to
your own conclusions -- they are the only ones that count."
best wishes,
david belsley, w1euy
On Sep 10, 2007, at 8:27 AM, Bill Tippett wrote:
Iambic Keying - Debunking the Myth
by
Marshall G. Emm, N1FN
"Iambic or "squeeze" keying is one of the "Great Expectations" in
CW operation.
Operators will agonize over a huge variety of features in
electronic keyers, but
support for iambic keying itself is a given. But Iambic keying is
really of very
limited value, and it's easy to become convinced that it was a BAD
IDEA that
happened to catch on"
<MAJOR SNIP...full analysis in article below>
http://www.morsex.com/pubs/iambicmyth.pdf
"The Myth Exposed
The idea that iambic keying is more efficient has been around for a
long time, and few operators
ever question it, even if they are having trouble doing it. They
might blame themselves, or the
paddle, and it stops being fun. At first it does seem to have a
certain “cool” factor, and no doubt
that’s why it was invented to start with. Some computer programmer
looked at an electronic
keyer, realized that he was looking at logic states (dot is on or
off, dash is on or off) and decided
to fill in the rest of the truth table– he was using “either a or
b ,” and he was using “neither a nor
b” but he wasn’t doing anything with “both a and b.” In other words
there was a third “switch”
that wasn’t being used. Not a bad idea on the face of it, and we’ve
been paying the price ever
since.
Iambic keying became all the rage, and manufacturers got to make a
bunch of new-fangled dual
paddles. Somewhere in there electronic keyer designers decided to
offer “refinements” of the
basic principles, giving everybody Iambic A vs Iambic B to argue
about, and distracting them
from any consideration of whether Iambic Anything was worth
bothering with. It’s like saying
the emperor has no clothes, but I’ll say it anyhow– iambic keying
is clever, and fun, but of very
little practical value. Worse, it can impose a speed limit on your
sending, and ruin another
perfectly good amateur radio myth– the widely accepted notion that
anyone can send twice as
fast as he can receive. But let’s talk about that one another
time....."
The fact that most High Speed Telegraphy contestants use
single paddle keys (i.e. non-iambic) is further proof of the above.
73, Bill W4ZV
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--------------------------------------------
david a. belsley
professor of economics
boston college
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