On Tue, 8 Sep 2009 19:10:15 -0400, David LaCourse
wrote:

On 2009-09-08 17:52:13 -0400, Bill Grey said:

A colleague of mine took a party of scouts to visit a naval ship in the
docks and they went in to see the wireless operator who spoke to the
scouts and answered questions while he was receiving messages via
headphones and re-sending them by keying Morse.

A a bit of a mindbender

Indeed! When I learned it right out of boot camp, the instructor could
copy 40 words/minute, 5 letter code groups, and he would be typing
about two groups behind. I.e., when the code ended, he still typed ten
or more characters.

American hams do not need to take the morse test any more. They can
get a ticket without it. Like you said, sad.

I went through 26 weeks of school learning not only Morse, but cyrillic
Morse, and a whole bunch of other "stuff". I graduated first in basic
course, and 2nd in the advanced course. Ironically, as only they do in
the military or government of any kind, they took the top four guys out
of each class and sent them to NON-Morse training school. I stayed in
non-morse billets the rest of my career and hardly ever used Morse
again.

I could tell ya some storiers, Bill, but then I'd have to kill you. d;o)

Dave

I had an instructor in RM/A school (basic radioman stuff, like what's
a typewriter) who could copy like that... 5-letter code groups at over
30wpm while smoking a cigarette, drinking a cup of coffee, and
discussing this with a group of awe-struck students (one of whom was
yours truly). Amazing! I also have a friend (a ham, btw) who copies
over 60wpm. Had a watch section leader on one of the ships to which I
was assigned who could listen to the audio of the AP/UP 60wpm teletype
signal (news wire) and tell you what it said. No trick! His back was
to the printer, and one of the other peons (like me) was verifying
what he said by looking at the print-out!

I agree about the sadness of morse being laid by the wayside. Mine
was one of the MANY comments against it that were filed with the FCC.