English As A Third Language

Lanna's morse reads:

I SUPPOSE THAT IS TRUE and is correct. He could have apostrophised THAT IS to - .... .- - .----. ... though

-.-. ..-

Good morse (actually should be referred to as Telegraphic code which is slightly different or CX which stands for Continuous Wave Transmission) should never use abbreviations except for the international standards and appostrophes - oh no never. He should have also have also sent the message initiation and ending codes but that is getting technical .

CB

Well, I was just goofing around. I only had to be examined in Morse code once evry 5 years. or more often if I was upgrading my license. Except for some of the communications that go to the radio officer

I was that radio officer - not on your ship obviously. BP, P&O, Sea Containers and one trip on a Fyffes banana boat

Out of interest what was your TX/RX speed?

CB - do we have to get back on topic yet?

The exam requirements for civilian R/Os in the UK (and I suspect elsewhere) were 20wpm for plain language and 16wpm for 5 figure code groups. After a couple of years at sea I was up to about 35wpm but many of the - ahem - 'less well trained' coast radio stations couldn't handle that so 20s were the usual speed. The fastest station I ever worked was Odessa/UTT and undoubtedly the 'best' (slickest, easiest, just the biz) was Slidell/WNU. What kind of kit were these 150wpm guys using? I used either a brass hammer or a Vibroplex.

BTW we were taught never ever EVER to write ahead - always a character or two (or a word or two if you were good) behind.

Anyone who is interested (probably me and Crow Boy ) can download 'The Art & Skill of Radiotelegraphy' from here.

It's 22 years since I last earned a living using it but if I hear it on the radio I can pick a pencil up and just write it down as though it was yesterday.