Re: Bug Tamer

[Rick Dettinger-2]

I have a photo of a commercial operator at KPH in northern California with a
heavy cable clamp attached to the arm of his bug.  When working ships, they
often keep the speed under 20 WPM.  Rick - K7MW

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[Ron D'Eau Claire-2]

I have a photo of a commercial operator at KPH in northern California with a
heavy cable clamp attached to the arm of his bug.  When working ships, they
often keep the speed under 20 WPM.  Rick - K7MW

------------------------------------------------------

That's my old buddy, LR, Rick. I now have his key. LR became an SK in the
early 1990's and his wife passed it on to me. He was also a Ham, K6ETY, but
he wasn't active the last twenty years. Les (LR) was my High School Radio
Shop teacher in the 1950's. He quit teaching right after I had his class.
(No, I never asked him about the connection.)

Les and I ended up working side by side at Lockheed Aircraft, then Sylvania
Electronic systems, then he went back to sea for several years before
finally marrying his childhood sweetheart and settling down at KPH in the
1970s at age 60-something.

I have the key and the cable clamp. It still has the dymo label with his
sine, LR, that he put there back in early 1960's. Les had deformed feet
which disqualified him for military service in WWII, so he signed on with
the merchant marine and ran the gauntlet back and forth through the
submarines lying in wait in both the Atlantic and Pacific. Looking for a
quieter life after the war, he became a High School Teacher. I'm not sure he
ever decided which was more dangerous, the classroom or those torpedoes. I
don't know what happened to the key he had then, but he bought the second
one, the one I have, when he went back to sea in the 1960's.

Some operators working closed circuits had the luxury of really working up
serious speed, but the commercial operators on the shore stations like KPH
were responsible for making it easy for the radio officers on the ships, and
many of them were none too fast. So they were always ready to QRS and rarely
got to work above 20 wpm. After all, that shipboard operator was the
customer and everyone knows what they say about customers and being right.

Besides, commercial operators know that more traffic gets handled at
moderate speeds without fills than one can do at higher speeds with
corrections. Some of the old pre WWII commercial shore stations used to
provide company bugs that the operators had to use. Those bugs had the
weights welded in place for 15 wpm to discourage speed sending.  

Ron AC7AC

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[Rick Dettinger-2]

Ron  - Sometimes I think there must have been real compitions between
operators.  Maybe in the military.  No firsthand experience here.  I put in
for radio school in 1964 but they sent me to cook and baker school.  I
worked with a guy who had been on a ship.  He said that when someone
challanged him, he removed the weight completly.  He may have been braging.
I just read a chapter from the novel "The Nymph and the Lamp" by Thomas
Raddel.(sp?)  A shore station was challanged by a ship operator.  When the
dust settled, the best operators on both side had been called into the
contest.  This was full contact Morse code.  I just plunk along under 20wpm
but I enjoy the mechanical keys.  I like being in control of what I send.
Rick - K7MW


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[Ron D'Eau Claire-2]

Ron  - Sometimes I think there must have been real compitions between
operators.  Maybe in the military.  No firsthand experience here.  I put in
for radio school in 1964 but they sent me to cook and baker school.  I
worked with a guy who had been on a ship.  He said that when someone
challanged him, he removed the weight completly.  He may have been braging.
I just read a chapter from the novel "The Nymph and the Lamp" by Thomas
Raddel.(sp?)  A shore station was challanged by a ship operator.  When the
dust settled, the best operators on both side had been called into the
contest.  This was full contact Morse code.  I just plunk along under 20wpm
but I enjoy the mechanical keys.  I like being in control of what I send.
Rick - K7MW

--------------------------------

That's a GREAT book, Rick.

If a shore operator ran into someone who wanted to QRQ they obliged to the
best of their ability. In my experience, ship operators aren't a lot
different from Hams. Some were very competent and others less so. I knew a
few who could barely make 10 wpm. LR's bug cable-clamp weight held his speed
to just about 20 wpm. That was probably common. Most bug users do the
"Farnsworth" thing to slow down, sending letters at normal speed but opening
up the spacing.  

The early days of radio, such as "The Nymph and the Lamp" covers, were a bit
different. In general operators got more rigorous and consistent schooling.
At the least, the skill of every operator reflected mightily on the station
manager who took great pride in his operation and would tutor or replace
anyone he found lacking. Even at sea the operators all usually worked for
the same company and inspectors monitored the circuits looking for LIDs. For
example shipboard operators on Marconi-equipped ships were all Marconi
wireless employees and all shipboard operators on Telefunken ships were
Telefunken employees, etc. They were not regular ship's crew members but
employees of the wireless company. Indeed, it was that confusion of
loyalties, in which the operators were instructed that it was more important
to move paid telegrams than to provide "convenience" messages for the
Captain, that was one of the critical issues behind went on aboard the
Titanic that April night. One of the changes after the Titanic sinking was
that shipboard radio operators signed "articles" as regular crew members
under the direct control of the Captain.

You are right that there were and are commercial QRQ ops out there! In later
years up into WWII and beyond many private and government circuits involved
the same operators, all with high levels of training and experience, who
enjoyed literally burning up the airwaves.

Still the good ops at a station like KPH were no slouches! I stopped by to
chat with LR one day and he wanted to introduce me to a buddy who was on
duty. His buddy was busy hammering out an incoming message from a ship on
his typewriter - "mill" - as we approached. I could hear the CW pounding
away. His buddy jumped up and shook my hand and we chatted for perhaps the
best part of a minute before he said, "'cuse me" sat down, sent an "R" and
hammered away at the mill like a madman for a bit completing the copy of the
message that he was reading in his head as he chatted with me! All this
while the NEXT message is starting to come in, and he still had time to
exchange a few words before we left him.

I can hold a conversation with the XYL while in a CW QSO, although I might
tell the XYL that I'm running an Elecraft K2 and tell the guy in the air
that I'll pick up milk next time I go to the store...

Ron AC7AC

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[Vic K2VCO]

Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:

> I can hold a conversation with the XYL while in a CW QSO, although I might
> tell the XYL that I'm running an Elecraft K2 and tell the guy in the air
> that I'll pick up milk next time I go to the store...

That's funny.  I can copy or send CW while listening to someone talk and
more or less get both conversations, but I can *not* get a single spoken
word out of my mouth while sending.  The part of my brain the does the
sending is also responsible for talking, apparently.
--
73,
Vic, K2VCO
Fresno CA
http://www.qsl.net/k2vco
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[Jim Campbell-7]

When I was first licensed, in the '50s, there was a "game" that some
chose to play.  Those playing this game were almost always novices.  The
game was to gradually increase your sending speed until the other op
yelled uncle by sending "pse qrs".  Of course, you started this game at
your own risk.  I have listened to exchanges where the originator of the
game was himself "burned", as it was called, by inadvertently picking on
someone who was more proficient than he was.  I never tried playing the
game myself, but was on occasion the victim of it.

Even today, new CW ops can often send faster than they can receive.  I
am elmering a young technician who sends much faster than he can
receive.  Before anyone gets their shorts in a knot, we are
communicating on 6 meters.

72,

Jim
W4BQP
K2 # 2268
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[Bob Baxter-3]

On 1/31/06, Ron D'Eau Claire <[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> If a shore operator ran into someone who wanted to QRQ they obliged to the
> best of their ability. In my experience, ship operators aren't a lot
> different from Hams. Some were very competent and others less so.

The best op I ever worked, as a 19 year old USAAF cw op in a small
weather station in Greenland in 46-47, was an ex-Merchant Marine
radioman.  He worked for American Overseas Airlines, a government
contract company who furnished communications and base maintenance
people to the Army, and was stationed at BW1, the main base in
Greenland at the time.  I was sending him some traffic and he broke
and gave me a QRQ.  I moved the weight, on the Lightning, back about
half way and went as fast as I could--he never asked for a fill.  I
had a couple of 12 wpm hand key ops and he always slowed down to their
speed when he worked them without being asked.

Bob Baxter  AA7EQ
Walnut Ridge, Ar.
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