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High Speed Morse (HSM)

Created by Paul Signorelli, W0RW on 2018-07-16
High Speed Morse (HSM)
by Paul Signorelli w0rw, Rev. A

Most people who learn the Morse code seem to hit an upper speed limit as they progress. Here is the reason and how to overcome it.

Receiving High Speed Morse

Here is what I have found during my Morse life time and you have probably heard it before, But I have to emphasize it: Copy Words - Not Letters.
Receiving HSM is like playing an anticipation game in your brain.
You have already learned how to do that for many words at slower speeds and your Google Search engine does it all the time with its auto completion program.
When you do a Google Search, and type in.. 'Indianap...' Google brings up Indianapolis before you can finish typing the word, 'Moorest..' brings up Moorestown, 'Camd..' brings up Camden, 'Wheel..' brings up Wheel of Fortune. When you copy some one sending 'Missi..', You say to yourself, I know he is going to send Mississippi, why can't he just send MS.

Your brain does this when you are receiving Morse.
This is not cheating, it is just how your brain completes the missing elements.
Remember the old FCC "Fill in the Blank" Morse code tests. It had partial sentences to complete like "My _______ is in a tree". The answer was "Antenna".

HSM requires that the anticipation game extend from just words now to common phrases.
The phrases are common sayings or Clichs frequently used in the TV games like the Wheel of Fortune.
You already intuitively know all these phrases, you only need to practice them on HSM.
Like "The XYL has...." The anticipated phrase is going to be: Called me to dinner, Come home and I have to QRT, etc...
or "I am really out on a" Limb.
Here is a link to some common ones
http://www.knowyourphrase.com/

When you begin copying HSM you will immediately hear the words like: And, The, Good, You, plus your Call, Name, QTH, etc. It may surprise you that you already know a lot of words and that should encourage you to listen more. This process has been taking shape ever since you started using Morse.

HSM can be like the 'Butterfly of Love that will gently land on your shoulder after you quit pursuing it. HSM begins differently for each person but it should begin at a speed that is more than you can write down. If you are still writing you are probably copying letter by letter.
You have to learn to copy Words and now Phrases in your head.
The High Speed I am talking about usually starts between 30 and 40 Words per minute.

Obviously, the Morse word sounds can not be deciphered this way if they are sent slowly and letter by letter with big spaces in between. The Farnsworth method (Bless him) which uses fast letter speed and wide letter spacing does not allow Word recognition. You have to learn the common words, but there will always be some that will not be in your HSM vocabulary yet, like "Poughkeepsie", unless you practice it. (If you live in Poughkeepsie please send your QTH as NY.)
After you become proficient at HSM, Slower speeds and Farnsworth reception will be like riding with a teenager who is learning how to drive a stick shift automobile.

See QST for the W1AW Fast Code Practice operating schedule.

 

Sending HSM

Your manual dexterity or typing skills will probably be the limit to your manual sending speeds.
You can't send 40 WPM on a CW keyboard for very long if your typing speed is only 20 WPM.
If you know how to "Touch Type", you probably know that the typing becomes a hand movement pattern routine.

The hand typing patterns get hard wired into our body after we practice them enough. A CW keyboard will allow you to send great CW, but the outgoing CW speed is limited by your typing skills.
Using a Bug or Paddle will also have manual dexterity limits but you don't have to send as fast as you can receive.

I use a single lever paddle when I am operating Pedestrian Mobile and find it better for HSM. I have also noticed that if I forget what I am sending or get distracted my words can be completed automatically by my repetitive hand motion pattern. When I send my call sign, it has a definite pattern and that pattern is never broken. If my brain sends a priority interrupt message (Like: "BALANCE!", "You Are Falling") as I am walking along on a trail, I re-balance my body and my hand keeps sending what ever word I am sending without me thinking about it. (You can send and receive HSM while you are out hiking on the trails).

Why Operate HSM?

It is really easier and more conversational.
It allows you to send more information or make more QSO's.
It saves energy, (important if you are operating on a battery).
I know you can do it.

Paul w0rw

 

 

WU7X2018-08-12
RE: High Speed Morse (HSM)
I want to thank everyone for the great article and comments. Another jab at getting off my butt and back into CW. I also think it would be great for my 70y.o. Brain. A little knuckle oil to keep the synapses popping.

Dale WU7X
Reply to a comment by : N9LCD on 2018-08-07

KA7EKW I respectfully beg to differ with you on the Japanese using the Enigma machine. Purportedly the first thing the Japanese Embassy did AFTER learning that Pearl Harbor had been attacked was to burn the code books and messages. The monitors at Pearl were able to identify Japanese ships by the sound of their code transmissions. The code transmissions from one carrier sounded like the operator sat on the key and sent by bouncing up and down. In early 1943 a New Zeland corvette attacked and drove a Japanese submarine aground off of Guadalcanal. After the sub captain led an unsuccessfuk Banzai! charge against the corvette, US Navy divers were able to enter the sub and recover the supply of code books that the sub was to distribute to Japanese outposts. The capture of this supply of code books led to the interception and shooting down of Admiral Yamamoto's aircraft in Japanese territory.
Reply to a comment by : KM1H on 2018-08-06

I learned CW from my Novice 5 in 1955 to 15 or so by copying the ARRL practice (still running)and traffic nets. A year after my General I received a ARRL 30 wpm certificate. In 1961 I was aboard ship as a USN ET where I spent a lot of time in Radio Central and started copying the trafffic in my head, it was only about 15 wpm so the new Radiomen could get involved. One day the RM1 was watching me and asked if I could copy the "code" and I said yes. Before long I had volunteered to stand circuit watch to relieve the at sea boredom and do what I enjoyed. Next I passed the speed key (bug) test at 20 wpm (I used a Vibroplex Presentation at home which was a 16th birthday present regularly at 30-35. Next they put me on crypto 5 character groups which was an all new world....no anticipation possible and precision was mandatory. It didnt take long until I was clocked at a steady 30 wpm by the RMC and RM1. Once the USN allowed hams /mm operation and the CO approved I used the gear in Emergency Radio (also the ET shack) and the RM's used to stop by when I was ragchewing at 30+ with the Vibroplex (which was mailed to me) while holding a conversation. The XO and CO were so impressed by the RMC's report I no longer had to stand any sea or port watches and could really enjoy liberty anytime the ship hit a port. IMO clear text is OK for starters but code groups separates the men from the boys. While the USN no longer does it manually other countries are still at it, (Cuba especially). I still sit down and dig in for a few hours a month. Anticipation doesnt work in some contests such as Sweeptakes. Carl
Reply to a comment by : N4RSS on 2018-07-25

Horses for courses. The letter by letter transcription was obviously of critical importance for the mission where the telegrapher had no role in interpreting the message. However, this approach would make for a pretty slow conversation for amateur use if the operator is to transcribe the message and then read and digest what he wrote before responding. I have seen anecdotal comments from former military operators on this hindrance. The more expedient approach that amateurs typically adopt is what makes for smoother communication, with little risk.
Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-25

AA4MB : I must have also done a poor job recognizing agreement. My dad was a USMC Low-Speed Operator. His rated CW speed was 35 WPM, and he was not primarily a radio operator, because his uncle had warned him to not work too quickly. He made the rating that he needed, and no more. My dad never became a ham. His uncle had been a ham before the war, and worked at a couple of major Southern California radio stores in the 1930s. HIS speed for chatting was about 60 WPM, his rated speed (by the Army) was well above that, and this skill got him sent some places which weren't much fun, including having to bail out of an airplane over the desert. He told Dad all about it, and Dad decided he would rather be a FIGHTING Marine than a BEEPING Marine. Codes and ciphers are still very popular for commercial use, even though secure have communications moved from public channels to laptops and smartphones. The Enigma machine is a "complex substitution" generator. Simple substitution would be A = W, B = C, etc. The Enigma shifts sets, so A may = W this time, then next A = F the next time, etc -- you have to have the pattern key to follow it. Military models added more wheels, to make it even more complex. The wheels were changed to change pattern keys, which could lead to problems when C4CK3 has two meanings to two different recipients working different keys! The most common business use of Enigma was in the creation of one-time pads for traveling staffers, but some major companies put them in various offices. Cablegrams would be sent in code, to prevent prying eyes from getting the jump on a hot deal or an uncertain client, then decoded with the one-time pad or through the Enigma. Simple substitution, used by the Allies during WWII, led to the most famous commo goof of the war. It is common in simple substitution to "pad" traffic, to keep enemy decryption operators from getting bored with their jobs. A short message may be embedded in a message several times the length, with a pattern key used to separate the padding. Nimitz original traffic to Halsey: WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR As sent with padding: TURKEY TROTS TO WATER GG FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR RR THE WORLD WONDERS As delivered to Halsey: FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR X THE WORLD WONDERS See what happened? When decrypted, the RR that was supposed to separate the wheat from chaff became X, used to separate one sentence from another. EVERY CHARACTER COUNTS. BTW, Japan used Enigma machines for diplomatic and military traffic, and the base encryption was broken in 1940 or 1941, before the US was in the war. As far as 18 WPM, maybe in the 1980s, when RTTY and Telex had largely taken over commercial and maritime traffic, and the military was on ARPANET, but certainly not in the mid-1970s or before. If you hunt around, you can find some recordings of 1960s SKYKING messages (voice) with adjacent-channel CW. None of that was 18 WPM. And, yes, each character sent and copied individually.
Reply to a comment by : AA4MB on 2018-07-25

> AA4MB: You missed my point. Possibly, I missed some of it. I probably did a rather poor job agreeing with a great deal of it, too. I think that the thrust of what was in my head was, history. For me, history is yesterday and everything before it. Without a shadow of doubt whatsoever, you're right: high speed CW ops in the day by and large learned it professionally or in the military. They had to get it right, 100%. Lives depended upon it in both professions. I think you missed MY point in that CW as a profession and avocation is, quite certainly dead. I guess the point could be made that people that make keyers and paddles even today are making money from others 'doing' CW, but there just isn't a heck of a big market for it going foward from the 'making a living sending and receiving it' aspect. I'll parahprase W1TTT in restating that it's just a hobby and not a living. To your point about all those ever running CW back to when men started rubbing sticks together for fire having learned it in the military or for professional reasons ... sure. That's likely unassailable information. I, for one, would love to have the benefit of having some of these folks in their heyday in a knock down/drag out with high speed contesters to see who was best. We both know who would come out on top. Contesters never have had to copy 5 letter groups and get it right 100% of the time. Correct info on Vibroplex, McElroy and any number of other high speed keys, too. I've never heard that the Enigma machine was originally intended for business use - that's intriguing. Thanks a lot, brother - you're going to keep me up late tonight reading about that, now. :) N9LCD talked about 18 wpm being the standard on maritime and (some) military traffic, etc., back in 'the day.' As a young pup of 59 not having a shortwave capable receiver for a number of years after I was licensed, I would have thought 18 wpm to be horribly slow for routine commercial or military traffic. The things you find out that you don't know. And I'm still finding out that Donald Rumsfeld was more right that I thought about how we don't know what we don't know. :) Matt, AA4MB
Reply to a comment by : N9LCD on 2018-07-24

In the 80's (before being licensed), I was into SWL'ing. I'd copy CW using a Commodore C64. Most of the CW I copied was maratime -- either shore stations answering ships of ships calling a shore station. The MOST COMMON SPEED was 18 words a minute with a variance of plus or minus 2 WPM. Only on the ham bands and then occasionnaly did I pick-up CW faster than 20 WPM. I worked with a former Army radio operator. During the Cuban missle crisis, he was on the line as an operator for a Pershing missle battery listening for the FIRE! command on a GRC-9. SPEED -- 18 WORDS A MINUTE. The operators had to get right the first time. No requesting repeats, no anticipation when you're receiving commands for a nuclear tipped tactical missle battery!
Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2018-07-22

KA7EKW's comments are spot on. One of my CW mentors was a local ham who worked for the City of St. Louis Police Department sending and receiving license plate and auto registration information. I once visited him at his workplace, where he was using his Eldico electronic keyer at 40 wpm or so. He took his keyer home at night to plug into his ham station. Someone in this discussion referred to a speed record of 195 WPM. That would be EW8GS, current record holder in the Rufz call sign copying competition. By its very nature, copying call signs is one character at a time. With a Morse conversation in a familiar context, yes it is possible to recognize short word sounds, but by an large, copying code is done character by character no matter how fast.
Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-22

AA4MB: You missed my point. That point was that the vast majority of high-speed operators and traffic over the past century or so went character-by-character. No "anticipation." They didn't have any problem doing so. BTW, I'd be willing to bet that if you added up all of the hams (without military or professional experience) worldwide who have ever run CW beyond that necessary to get their licenses, they would be a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of thousands of military and professional operators over the years. Likewise, military and commercial traffic was often above a level that would put contesters to shame, but this was ALL day, EVERY day, for weeks, months and even years on end. Consider that the Vibroplex and other keyers of the type are designed to operate at MINIMUM speeds of 25 - 28 WPM. They weren't made for hams, they were sold to the men (and a few women) who made their living using them at speeds in the 30s and above. With 5-character groups, which usually meant absolutely nothing to the operators (including commercial traffic, BTW -- the Enigma machine was invented to create code groups for business use). Blowing a character by guessing what it was supposed to be could give you something like the Bob Newhart skecth: "To be, or not to be, that is the gzornenplatz." Thus, the point is that it is obviously possible to work high speeds, one character at a time, with high accuracy -- and this is the NORMAL way of doing things.
Reply to a comment by : AA4MB on 2018-07-18

Wow, great article, Paul. I believe that a great deal of it has to do with how old you are when you learn it, too. It was super easy for two of my friends and me to learn high-speed copy when we were 14-16 years old. A third friend (same age) had a complete mental block and could never get past about 10 wpm. We are all individuals, but in reading your post and the responses I was struck by how many things really resonated (pun fully intended) - as well as how many things didn't. I too drive to work and frequently - almost subconsciously - send snippets of billboards or business signs in my head while driving. I can still dope out about 50 wpm in my head (gave up copying to paper when I hit about 23-24 words per minute as I recall). Man, it actually is a struggle to comprehend CW that fast, though. It's not comfortable. For me, it begins to get comfortable back down in the 40 - 45 wpm range. I agree with one other respondent that I seldom hear CW going really QRQ in conversations on the air. 26-27 wpm is about the tops that I hear routinely on 40 meter CW. I sometimes catch myself going 2-3 wpm faster than someone is sending. I listen for comprehension and answers to questions that I'm asking or comments on what I've said. If I hear none, I slow just a bit or put a bit more space between the words. Not the letters - the WORDS. One thing I'd like to address: KA7EKW's comments with respect to the article being 'wrong.' Man, I totally get what you're saying, but would like to add a couple of thoughts. First, if someone is sending at my speed limit and they send, WHIT - yes, absolutely yes, I'm going to anticipate WHITE. However, where I'd venture to say that you're a bit off the mark is that my brain (likely most folks) is capable of saying, "Oh. That wasn't 'white' ... there was another 't' on the end, and it is 'whitt.' My brain is doing that while simultaneously copying the new word, too. I do that routinely. Automatically. Second, we aren't copying random 5 letter groups in conversations. We are copying words. It's perfectly okay to get a letter here and there that's not 100% correct; the brain is also quite capable of putting the word in context and changing the spelling of the word in the very recent past (milliseconds), also. Finally, you're on the mark, yet beginning to miss it with the comment about the vast majority of high-speed ops being from the military and professions which used CW. That might have been the case before, but there are a ton of CW ops - myself and my other two close friends included who never served, yet can hold our own with military trained CW ops. And don't forget the fact that it's been more than a few years since the military trained folks on Morse. As valid as the statement and suppositions are, that too will be gone like the wind in a few short years. In short, not only is it acceptable for us 'non-professional' CW ops to anticipate the next letter, but in a few years we will be all that's left. But you're right - it's not beyond the capability of mere mortals. But I think we really limit ourselves when we 'copy' CW to begin with. LISTEN to it and HEAR it. It truly is a language in and of itself. MM0TWX has a valid comment. Normally, I'd say 'just do it' and be done, but there are folks that have a ceiling past which they cannot copy. I think that most of us have that ceiling. My comment to Pete: my friend, if you can muster 26/27, why bother trying to improve? That's doggone fast enough, in my opinion. I find 40-45 quite easy to comprehend in my head, but is that my 'go to' speed? No, I find myself gravitating toward 24-26 wpm as being quite comfortable to copy. It's actually relaxing to me. Above 30 or so and the relaxation, part begins to wane for me. W9FR: I bow before you, humbled by anyone 'with it' enough to write at 45 wpm! And no way I could get 80 wpm in my head. It almost physically hurts to try. For me, having someone Elmer me by GIVING me a single paddle keyer as a Novice was the key. I routinely would call CQ about 5-10 wpm faster than I could send. And yes, on more than a few occasions I had to cry 'uncle' and say, 'pls QRS a bit' - after all, I was young and stupid like most of you at some point in your life. But it seemed like each 10 QSOs or so would add another WPM under my belt. (Until I got to the point that I couldn't go faster or I just didn't see the point.) I had a lucky set of circumstances (Elmers/learning at a young age) and by the time I was taking my General test, 13 wpm was no barrier at all, as I could do 35 wpm when I wanted. I'm not a member, but the CWOPS CW Academy seems like a worthwhile venture and I'd like to become involved with helping mentor folks like that at some point. I'm regularly awed by people in their 20's, 30's and 40's that are just learning CW and I hope they mentor as well. AA4MB, Matt
N9LCD2018-08-07
RE: High Speed Morse (HSM)
KA7EKW

I respectfully beg to differ with you on the Japanese using the Enigma machine.

Purportedly the first thing the Japanese Embassy did AFTER learning that Pearl Harbor had been attacked was to burn the code books and messages.

The monitors at Pearl were able to identify Japanese ships by the sound of their code transmissions. The code transmissions from one carrier sounded like the operator sat on the key and sent by bouncing up and down.

In early 1943 a New Zeland corvette attacked and drove a Japanese submarine aground off of Guadalcanal. After the sub captain led an unsuccessfuk Banzai! charge against the corvette, US Navy divers were able to enter the sub and recover the supply of code books that the sub was to distribute to Japanese outposts. The capture of this supply of code books led to the interception and shooting down of Admiral Yamamoto's aircraft in Japanese territory.
Reply to a comment by : KM1H on 2018-08-06

I learned CW from my Novice 5 in 1955 to 15 or so by copying the ARRL practice (still running)and traffic nets. A year after my General I received a ARRL 30 wpm certificate. In 1961 I was aboard ship as a USN ET where I spent a lot of time in Radio Central and started copying the trafffic in my head, it was only about 15 wpm so the new Radiomen could get involved. One day the RM1 was watching me and asked if I could copy the "code" and I said yes. Before long I had volunteered to stand circuit watch to relieve the at sea boredom and do what I enjoyed. Next I passed the speed key (bug) test at 20 wpm (I used a Vibroplex Presentation at home which was a 16th birthday present regularly at 30-35. Next they put me on crypto 5 character groups which was an all new world....no anticipation possible and precision was mandatory. It didnt take long until I was clocked at a steady 30 wpm by the RMC and RM1. Once the USN allowed hams /mm operation and the CO approved I used the gear in Emergency Radio (also the ET shack) and the RM's used to stop by when I was ragchewing at 30+ with the Vibroplex (which was mailed to me) while holding a conversation. The XO and CO were so impressed by the RMC's report I no longer had to stand any sea or port watches and could really enjoy liberty anytime the ship hit a port. IMO clear text is OK for starters but code groups separates the men from the boys. While the USN no longer does it manually other countries are still at it, (Cuba especially). I still sit down and dig in for a few hours a month. Anticipation doesnt work in some contests such as Sweeptakes. Carl
Reply to a comment by : N4RSS on 2018-07-25

Horses for courses. The letter by letter transcription was obviously of critical importance for the mission where the telegrapher had no role in interpreting the message. However, this approach would make for a pretty slow conversation for amateur use if the operator is to transcribe the message and then read and digest what he wrote before responding. I have seen anecdotal comments from former military operators on this hindrance. The more expedient approach that amateurs typically adopt is what makes for smoother communication, with little risk.
Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-25

AA4MB : I must have also done a poor job recognizing agreement. My dad was a USMC Low-Speed Operator. His rated CW speed was 35 WPM, and he was not primarily a radio operator, because his uncle had warned him to not work too quickly. He made the rating that he needed, and no more. My dad never became a ham. His uncle had been a ham before the war, and worked at a couple of major Southern California radio stores in the 1930s. HIS speed for chatting was about 60 WPM, his rated speed (by the Army) was well above that, and this skill got him sent some places which weren't much fun, including having to bail out of an airplane over the desert. He told Dad all about it, and Dad decided he would rather be a FIGHTING Marine than a BEEPING Marine. Codes and ciphers are still very popular for commercial use, even though secure have communications moved from public channels to laptops and smartphones. The Enigma machine is a "complex substitution" generator. Simple substitution would be A = W, B = C, etc. The Enigma shifts sets, so A may = W this time, then next A = F the next time, etc -- you have to have the pattern key to follow it. Military models added more wheels, to make it even more complex. The wheels were changed to change pattern keys, which could lead to problems when C4CK3 has two meanings to two different recipients working different keys! The most common business use of Enigma was in the creation of one-time pads for traveling staffers, but some major companies put them in various offices. Cablegrams would be sent in code, to prevent prying eyes from getting the jump on a hot deal or an uncertain client, then decoded with the one-time pad or through the Enigma. Simple substitution, used by the Allies during WWII, led to the most famous commo goof of the war. It is common in simple substitution to "pad" traffic, to keep enemy decryption operators from getting bored with their jobs. A short message may be embedded in a message several times the length, with a pattern key used to separate the padding. Nimitz original traffic to Halsey: WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR As sent with padding: TURKEY TROTS TO WATER GG FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR RR THE WORLD WONDERS As delivered to Halsey: FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR X THE WORLD WONDERS See what happened? When decrypted, the RR that was supposed to separate the wheat from chaff became X, used to separate one sentence from another. EVERY CHARACTER COUNTS. BTW, Japan used Enigma machines for diplomatic and military traffic, and the base encryption was broken in 1940 or 1941, before the US was in the war. As far as 18 WPM, maybe in the 1980s, when RTTY and Telex had largely taken over commercial and maritime traffic, and the military was on ARPANET, but certainly not in the mid-1970s or before. If you hunt around, you can find some recordings of 1960s SKYKING messages (voice) with adjacent-channel CW. None of that was 18 WPM. And, yes, each character sent and copied individually.
Reply to a comment by : AA4MB on 2018-07-25

> AA4MB: You missed my point. Possibly, I missed some of it. I probably did a rather poor job agreeing with a great deal of it, too. I think that the thrust of what was in my head was, history. For me, history is yesterday and everything before it. Without a shadow of doubt whatsoever, you're right: high speed CW ops in the day by and large learned it professionally or in the military. They had to get it right, 100%. Lives depended upon it in both professions. I think you missed MY point in that CW as a profession and avocation is, quite certainly dead. I guess the point could be made that people that make keyers and paddles even today are making money from others 'doing' CW, but there just isn't a heck of a big market for it going foward from the 'making a living sending and receiving it' aspect. I'll parahprase W1TTT in restating that it's just a hobby and not a living. To your point about all those ever running CW back to when men started rubbing sticks together for fire having learned it in the military or for professional reasons ... sure. That's likely unassailable information. I, for one, would love to have the benefit of having some of these folks in their heyday in a knock down/drag out with high speed contesters to see who was best. We both know who would come out on top. Contesters never have had to copy 5 letter groups and get it right 100% of the time. Correct info on Vibroplex, McElroy and any number of other high speed keys, too. I've never heard that the Enigma machine was originally intended for business use - that's intriguing. Thanks a lot, brother - you're going to keep me up late tonight reading about that, now. :) N9LCD talked about 18 wpm being the standard on maritime and (some) military traffic, etc., back in 'the day.' As a young pup of 59 not having a shortwave capable receiver for a number of years after I was licensed, I would have thought 18 wpm to be horribly slow for routine commercial or military traffic. The things you find out that you don't know. And I'm still finding out that Donald Rumsfeld was more right that I thought about how we don't know what we don't know. :) Matt, AA4MB
Reply to a comment by : N9LCD on 2018-07-24

In the 80's (before being licensed), I was into SWL'ing. I'd copy CW using a Commodore C64. Most of the CW I copied was maratime -- either shore stations answering ships of ships calling a shore station. The MOST COMMON SPEED was 18 words a minute with a variance of plus or minus 2 WPM. Only on the ham bands and then occasionnaly did I pick-up CW faster than 20 WPM. I worked with a former Army radio operator. During the Cuban missle crisis, he was on the line as an operator for a Pershing missle battery listening for the FIRE! command on a GRC-9. SPEED -- 18 WORDS A MINUTE. The operators had to get right the first time. No requesting repeats, no anticipation when you're receiving commands for a nuclear tipped tactical missle battery!
Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2018-07-22

KA7EKW's comments are spot on. One of my CW mentors was a local ham who worked for the City of St. Louis Police Department sending and receiving license plate and auto registration information. I once visited him at his workplace, where he was using his Eldico electronic keyer at 40 wpm or so. He took his keyer home at night to plug into his ham station. Someone in this discussion referred to a speed record of 195 WPM. That would be EW8GS, current record holder in the Rufz call sign copying competition. By its very nature, copying call signs is one character at a time. With a Morse conversation in a familiar context, yes it is possible to recognize short word sounds, but by an large, copying code is done character by character no matter how fast.
Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-22

AA4MB: You missed my point. That point was that the vast majority of high-speed operators and traffic over the past century or so went character-by-character. No "anticipation." They didn't have any problem doing so. BTW, I'd be willing to bet that if you added up all of the hams (without military or professional experience) worldwide who have ever run CW beyond that necessary to get their licenses, they would be a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of thousands of military and professional operators over the years. Likewise, military and commercial traffic was often above a level that would put contesters to shame, but this was ALL day, EVERY day, for weeks, months and even years on end. Consider that the Vibroplex and other keyers of the type are designed to operate at MINIMUM speeds of 25 - 28 WPM. They weren't made for hams, they were sold to the men (and a few women) who made their living using them at speeds in the 30s and above. With 5-character groups, which usually meant absolutely nothing to the operators (including commercial traffic, BTW -- the Enigma machine was invented to create code groups for business use). Blowing a character by guessing what it was supposed to be could give you something like the Bob Newhart skecth: "To be, or not to be, that is the gzornenplatz." Thus, the point is that it is obviously possible to work high speeds, one character at a time, with high accuracy -- and this is the NORMAL way of doing things.
Reply to a comment by : AA4MB on 2018-07-18

Wow, great article, Paul. I believe that a great deal of it has to do with how old you are when you learn it, too. It was super easy for two of my friends and me to learn high-speed copy when we were 14-16 years old. A third friend (same age) had a complete mental block and could never get past about 10 wpm. We are all individuals, but in reading your post and the responses I was struck by how many things really resonated (pun fully intended) - as well as how many things didn't. I too drive to work and frequently - almost subconsciously - send snippets of billboards or business signs in my head while driving. I can still dope out about 50 wpm in my head (gave up copying to paper when I hit about 23-24 words per minute as I recall). Man, it actually is a struggle to comprehend CW that fast, though. It's not comfortable. For me, it begins to get comfortable back down in the 40 - 45 wpm range. I agree with one other respondent that I seldom hear CW going really QRQ in conversations on the air. 26-27 wpm is about the tops that I hear routinely on 40 meter CW. I sometimes catch myself going 2-3 wpm faster than someone is sending. I listen for comprehension and answers to questions that I'm asking or comments on what I've said. If I hear none, I slow just a bit or put a bit more space between the words. Not the letters - the WORDS. One thing I'd like to address: KA7EKW's comments with respect to the article being 'wrong.' Man, I totally get what you're saying, but would like to add a couple of thoughts. First, if someone is sending at my speed limit and they send, WHIT - yes, absolutely yes, I'm going to anticipate WHITE. However, where I'd venture to say that you're a bit off the mark is that my brain (likely most folks) is capable of saying, "Oh. That wasn't 'white' ... there was another 't' on the end, and it is 'whitt.' My brain is doing that while simultaneously copying the new word, too. I do that routinely. Automatically. Second, we aren't copying random 5 letter groups in conversations. We are copying words. It's perfectly okay to get a letter here and there that's not 100% correct; the brain is also quite capable of putting the word in context and changing the spelling of the word in the very recent past (milliseconds), also. Finally, you're on the mark, yet beginning to miss it with the comment about the vast majority of high-speed ops being from the military and professions which used CW. That might have been the case before, but there are a ton of CW ops - myself and my other two close friends included who never served, yet can hold our own with military trained CW ops. And don't forget the fact that it's been more than a few years since the military trained folks on Morse. As valid as the statement and suppositions are, that too will be gone like the wind in a few short years. In short, not only is it acceptable for us 'non-professional' CW ops to anticipate the next letter, but in a few years we will be all that's left. But you're right - it's not beyond the capability of mere mortals. But I think we really limit ourselves when we 'copy' CW to begin with. LISTEN to it and HEAR it. It truly is a language in and of itself. MM0TWX has a valid comment. Normally, I'd say 'just do it' and be done, but there are folks that have a ceiling past which they cannot copy. I think that most of us have that ceiling. My comment to Pete: my friend, if you can muster 26/27, why bother trying to improve? That's doggone fast enough, in my opinion. I find 40-45 quite easy to comprehend in my head, but is that my 'go to' speed? No, I find myself gravitating toward 24-26 wpm as being quite comfortable to copy. It's actually relaxing to me. Above 30 or so and the relaxation, part begins to wane for me. W9FR: I bow before you, humbled by anyone 'with it' enough to write at 45 wpm! And no way I could get 80 wpm in my head. It almost physically hurts to try. For me, having someone Elmer me by GIVING me a single paddle keyer as a Novice was the key. I routinely would call CQ about 5-10 wpm faster than I could send. And yes, on more than a few occasions I had to cry 'uncle' and say, 'pls QRS a bit' - after all, I was young and stupid like most of you at some point in your life. But it seemed like each 10 QSOs or so would add another WPM under my belt. (Until I got to the point that I couldn't go faster or I just didn't see the point.) I had a lucky set of circumstances (Elmers/learning at a young age) and by the time I was taking my General test, 13 wpm was no barrier at all, as I could do 35 wpm when I wanted. I'm not a member, but the CWOPS CW Academy seems like a worthwhile venture and I'd like to become involved with helping mentor folks like that at some point. I'm regularly awed by people in their 20's, 30's and 40's that are just learning CW and I hope they mentor as well. AA4MB, Matt
KM1H2018-08-06
RE: High Speed Morse (HSM)
I learned CW from my Novice 5 in 1955 to 15 or so by copying the ARRL practice (still running)and traffic nets. A year after my General I received a ARRL 30 wpm certificate.

In 1961 I was aboard ship as a USN ET where I spent a lot of time in Radio Central and started copying the trafffic in my head, it was only about 15 wpm so the new Radiomen could get involved. One day the RM1 was watching me and asked if I could copy the "code" and I said yes. Before long I had volunteered to stand circuit watch to relieve the at sea boredom and do what I enjoyed. Next I passed the speed key (bug) test at 20 wpm (I used a Vibroplex Presentation at home which was a 16th birthday present regularly at 30-35.

Next they put me on crypto 5 character groups which was an all new world....no anticipation possible and precision was mandatory. It didnt take long until I was clocked at a steady 30 wpm by the RMC and RM1.

Once the USN allowed hams /mm operation and the CO approved I used the gear in Emergency Radio (also the ET shack) and the RM's used to stop by when I was ragchewing at 30+ with the Vibroplex (which was mailed to me) while holding a conversation.

The XO and CO were so impressed by the RMC's report I no longer had to stand any sea or port watches and could really enjoy liberty anytime the ship hit a port.

IMO clear text is OK for starters but code groups separates the men from the boys. While the USN no longer does it manually other countries are still at it, (Cuba especially). I still sit down and dig in for a few hours a month.

Anticipation doesnt work in some contests such as Sweeptakes.

Carl
Reply to a comment by : N4RSS on 2018-07-25

Horses for courses. The letter by letter transcription was obviously of critical importance for the mission where the telegrapher had no role in interpreting the message. However, this approach would make for a pretty slow conversation for amateur use if the operator is to transcribe the message and then read and digest what he wrote before responding. I have seen anecdotal comments from former military operators on this hindrance. The more expedient approach that amateurs typically adopt is what makes for smoother communication, with little risk.
Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-25

AA4MB : I must have also done a poor job recognizing agreement. My dad was a USMC Low-Speed Operator. His rated CW speed was 35 WPM, and he was not primarily a radio operator, because his uncle had warned him to not work too quickly. He made the rating that he needed, and no more. My dad never became a ham. His uncle had been a ham before the war, and worked at a couple of major Southern California radio stores in the 1930s. HIS speed for chatting was about 60 WPM, his rated speed (by the Army) was well above that, and this skill got him sent some places which weren't much fun, including having to bail out of an airplane over the desert. He told Dad all about it, and Dad decided he would rather be a FIGHTING Marine than a BEEPING Marine. Codes and ciphers are still very popular for commercial use, even though secure have communications moved from public channels to laptops and smartphones. The Enigma machine is a "complex substitution" generator. Simple substitution would be A = W, B = C, etc. The Enigma shifts sets, so A may = W this time, then next A = F the next time, etc -- you have to have the pattern key to follow it. Military models added more wheels, to make it even more complex. The wheels were changed to change pattern keys, which could lead to problems when C4CK3 has two meanings to two different recipients working different keys! The most common business use of Enigma was in the creation of one-time pads for traveling staffers, but some major companies put them in various offices. Cablegrams would be sent in code, to prevent prying eyes from getting the jump on a hot deal or an uncertain client, then decoded with the one-time pad or through the Enigma. Simple substitution, used by the Allies during WWII, led to the most famous commo goof of the war. It is common in simple substitution to "pad" traffic, to keep enemy decryption operators from getting bored with their jobs. A short message may be embedded in a message several times the length, with a pattern key used to separate the padding. Nimitz original traffic to Halsey: WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR As sent with padding: TURKEY TROTS TO WATER GG FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR RR THE WORLD WONDERS As delivered to Halsey: FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR X THE WORLD WONDERS See what happened? When decrypted, the RR that was supposed to separate the wheat from chaff became X, used to separate one sentence from another. EVERY CHARACTER COUNTS. BTW, Japan used Enigma machines for diplomatic and military traffic, and the base encryption was broken in 1940 or 1941, before the US was in the war. As far as 18 WPM, maybe in the 1980s, when RTTY and Telex had largely taken over commercial and maritime traffic, and the military was on ARPANET, but certainly not in the mid-1970s or before. If you hunt around, you can find some recordings of 1960s SKYKING messages (voice) with adjacent-channel CW. None of that was 18 WPM. And, yes, each character sent and copied individually.
Reply to a comment by : AA4MB on 2018-07-25

> AA4MB: You missed my point. Possibly, I missed some of it. I probably did a rather poor job agreeing with a great deal of it, too. I think that the thrust of what was in my head was, history. For me, history is yesterday and everything before it. Without a shadow of doubt whatsoever, you're right: high speed CW ops in the day by and large learned it professionally or in the military. They had to get it right, 100%. Lives depended upon it in both professions. I think you missed MY point in that CW as a profession and avocation is, quite certainly dead. I guess the point could be made that people that make keyers and paddles even today are making money from others 'doing' CW, but there just isn't a heck of a big market for it going foward from the 'making a living sending and receiving it' aspect. I'll parahprase W1TTT in restating that it's just a hobby and not a living. To your point about all those ever running CW back to when men started rubbing sticks together for fire having learned it in the military or for professional reasons ... sure. That's likely unassailable information. I, for one, would love to have the benefit of having some of these folks in their heyday in a knock down/drag out with high speed contesters to see who was best. We both know who would come out on top. Contesters never have had to copy 5 letter groups and get it right 100% of the time. Correct info on Vibroplex, McElroy and any number of other high speed keys, too. I've never heard that the Enigma machine was originally intended for business use - that's intriguing. Thanks a lot, brother - you're going to keep me up late tonight reading about that, now. :) N9LCD talked about 18 wpm being the standard on maritime and (some) military traffic, etc., back in 'the day.' As a young pup of 59 not having a shortwave capable receiver for a number of years after I was licensed, I would have thought 18 wpm to be horribly slow for routine commercial or military traffic. The things you find out that you don't know. And I'm still finding out that Donald Rumsfeld was more right that I thought about how we don't know what we don't know. :) Matt, AA4MB
Reply to a comment by : N9LCD on 2018-07-24

In the 80's (before being licensed), I was into SWL'ing. I'd copy CW using a Commodore C64. Most of the CW I copied was maratime -- either shore stations answering ships of ships calling a shore station. The MOST COMMON SPEED was 18 words a minute with a variance of plus or minus 2 WPM. Only on the ham bands and then occasionnaly did I pick-up CW faster than 20 WPM. I worked with a former Army radio operator. During the Cuban missle crisis, he was on the line as an operator for a Pershing missle battery listening for the FIRE! command on a GRC-9. SPEED -- 18 WORDS A MINUTE. The operators had to get right the first time. No requesting repeats, no anticipation when you're receiving commands for a nuclear tipped tactical missle battery!
Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2018-07-22

KA7EKW's comments are spot on. One of my CW mentors was a local ham who worked for the City of St. Louis Police Department sending and receiving license plate and auto registration information. I once visited him at his workplace, where he was using his Eldico electronic keyer at 40 wpm or so. He took his keyer home at night to plug into his ham station. Someone in this discussion referred to a speed record of 195 WPM. That would be EW8GS, current record holder in the Rufz call sign copying competition. By its very nature, copying call signs is one character at a time. With a Morse conversation in a familiar context, yes it is possible to recognize short word sounds, but by an large, copying code is done character by character no matter how fast.
Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-22

AA4MB: You missed my point. That point was that the vast majority of high-speed operators and traffic over the past century or so went character-by-character. No "anticipation." They didn't have any problem doing so. BTW, I'd be willing to bet that if you added up all of the hams (without military or professional experience) worldwide who have ever run CW beyond that necessary to get their licenses, they would be a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of thousands of military and professional operators over the years. Likewise, military and commercial traffic was often above a level that would put contesters to shame, but this was ALL day, EVERY day, for weeks, months and even years on end. Consider that the Vibroplex and other keyers of the type are designed to operate at MINIMUM speeds of 25 - 28 WPM. They weren't made for hams, they were sold to the men (and a few women) who made their living using them at speeds in the 30s and above. With 5-character groups, which usually meant absolutely nothing to the operators (including commercial traffic, BTW -- the Enigma machine was invented to create code groups for business use). Blowing a character by guessing what it was supposed to be could give you something like the Bob Newhart skecth: "To be, or not to be, that is the gzornenplatz." Thus, the point is that it is obviously possible to work high speeds, one character at a time, with high accuracy -- and this is the NORMAL way of doing things.
Reply to a comment by : AA4MB on 2018-07-18

Wow, great article, Paul. I believe that a great deal of it has to do with how old you are when you learn it, too. It was super easy for two of my friends and me to learn high-speed copy when we were 14-16 years old. A third friend (same age) had a complete mental block and could never get past about 10 wpm. We are all individuals, but in reading your post and the responses I was struck by how many things really resonated (pun fully intended) - as well as how many things didn't. I too drive to work and frequently - almost subconsciously - send snippets of billboards or business signs in my head while driving. I can still dope out about 50 wpm in my head (gave up copying to paper when I hit about 23-24 words per minute as I recall). Man, it actually is a struggle to comprehend CW that fast, though. It's not comfortable. For me, it begins to get comfortable back down in the 40 - 45 wpm range. I agree with one other respondent that I seldom hear CW going really QRQ in conversations on the air. 26-27 wpm is about the tops that I hear routinely on 40 meter CW. I sometimes catch myself going 2-3 wpm faster than someone is sending. I listen for comprehension and answers to questions that I'm asking or comments on what I've said. If I hear none, I slow just a bit or put a bit more space between the words. Not the letters - the WORDS. One thing I'd like to address: KA7EKW's comments with respect to the article being 'wrong.' Man, I totally get what you're saying, but would like to add a couple of thoughts. First, if someone is sending at my speed limit and they send, WHIT - yes, absolutely yes, I'm going to anticipate WHITE. However, where I'd venture to say that you're a bit off the mark is that my brain (likely most folks) is capable of saying, "Oh. That wasn't 'white' ... there was another 't' on the end, and it is 'whitt.' My brain is doing that while simultaneously copying the new word, too. I do that routinely. Automatically. Second, we aren't copying random 5 letter groups in conversations. We are copying words. It's perfectly okay to get a letter here and there that's not 100% correct; the brain is also quite capable of putting the word in context and changing the spelling of the word in the very recent past (milliseconds), also. Finally, you're on the mark, yet beginning to miss it with the comment about the vast majority of high-speed ops being from the military and professions which used CW. That might have been the case before, but there are a ton of CW ops - myself and my other two close friends included who never served, yet can hold our own with military trained CW ops. And don't forget the fact that it's been more than a few years since the military trained folks on Morse. As valid as the statement and suppositions are, that too will be gone like the wind in a few short years. In short, not only is it acceptable for us 'non-professional' CW ops to anticipate the next letter, but in a few years we will be all that's left. But you're right - it's not beyond the capability of mere mortals. But I think we really limit ourselves when we 'copy' CW to begin with. LISTEN to it and HEAR it. It truly is a language in and of itself. MM0TWX has a valid comment. Normally, I'd say 'just do it' and be done, but there are folks that have a ceiling past which they cannot copy. I think that most of us have that ceiling. My comment to Pete: my friend, if you can muster 26/27, why bother trying to improve? That's doggone fast enough, in my opinion. I find 40-45 quite easy to comprehend in my head, but is that my 'go to' speed? No, I find myself gravitating toward 24-26 wpm as being quite comfortable to copy. It's actually relaxing to me. Above 30 or so and the relaxation, part begins to wane for me. W9FR: I bow before you, humbled by anyone 'with it' enough to write at 45 wpm! And no way I could get 80 wpm in my head. It almost physically hurts to try. For me, having someone Elmer me by GIVING me a single paddle keyer as a Novice was the key. I routinely would call CQ about 5-10 wpm faster than I could send. And yes, on more than a few occasions I had to cry 'uncle' and say, 'pls QRS a bit' - after all, I was young and stupid like most of you at some point in your life. But it seemed like each 10 QSOs or so would add another WPM under my belt. (Until I got to the point that I couldn't go faster or I just didn't see the point.) I had a lucky set of circumstances (Elmers/learning at a young age) and by the time I was taking my General test, 13 wpm was no barrier at all, as I could do 35 wpm when I wanted. I'm not a member, but the CWOPS CW Academy seems like a worthwhile venture and I'd like to become involved with helping mentor folks like that at some point. I'm regularly awed by people in their 20's, 30's and 40's that are just learning CW and I hope they mentor as well. AA4MB, Matt
N4RSS2018-07-25
RE: High Speed Morse (HSM)
Horses for courses.

The letter by letter transcription was obviously of critical importance for the mission where the telegrapher had no role in interpreting the message.

However, this approach would make for a pretty slow conversation for amateur use if the operator is to transcribe the message and then read and digest what he wrote before responding. I have seen anecdotal comments from former military operators on this hindrance.

The more expedient approach that amateurs typically adopt is what makes for smoother communication, with little risk.
Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-25

AA4MB : I must have also done a poor job recognizing agreement. My dad was a USMC Low-Speed Operator. His rated CW speed was 35 WPM, and he was not primarily a radio operator, because his uncle had warned him to not work too quickly. He made the rating that he needed, and no more. My dad never became a ham. His uncle had been a ham before the war, and worked at a couple of major Southern California radio stores in the 1930s. HIS speed for chatting was about 60 WPM, his rated speed (by the Army) was well above that, and this skill got him sent some places which weren't much fun, including having to bail out of an airplane over the desert. He told Dad all about it, and Dad decided he would rather be a FIGHTING Marine than a BEEPING Marine. Codes and ciphers are still very popular for commercial use, even though secure have communications moved from public channels to laptops and smartphones. The Enigma machine is a "complex substitution" generator. Simple substitution would be A = W, B = C, etc. The Enigma shifts sets, so A may = W this time, then next A = F the next time, etc -- you have to have the pattern key to follow it. Military models added more wheels, to make it even more complex. The wheels were changed to change pattern keys, which could lead to problems when C4CK3 has two meanings to two different recipients working different keys! The most common business use of Enigma was in the creation of one-time pads for traveling staffers, but some major companies put them in various offices. Cablegrams would be sent in code, to prevent prying eyes from getting the jump on a hot deal or an uncertain client, then decoded with the one-time pad or through the Enigma. Simple substitution, used by the Allies during WWII, led to the most famous commo goof of the war. It is common in simple substitution to "pad" traffic, to keep enemy decryption operators from getting bored with their jobs. A short message may be embedded in a message several times the length, with a pattern key used to separate the padding. Nimitz original traffic to Halsey: WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR As sent with padding: TURKEY TROTS TO WATER GG FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR RR THE WORLD WONDERS As delivered to Halsey: FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR X THE WORLD WONDERS See what happened? When decrypted, the RR that was supposed to separate the wheat from chaff became X, used to separate one sentence from another. EVERY CHARACTER COUNTS. BTW, Japan used Enigma machines for diplomatic and military traffic, and the base encryption was broken in 1940 or 1941, before the US was in the war. As far as 18 WPM, maybe in the 1980s, when RTTY and Telex had largely taken over commercial and maritime traffic, and the military was on ARPANET, but certainly not in the mid-1970s or before. If you hunt around, you can find some recordings of 1960s SKYKING messages (voice) with adjacent-channel CW. None of that was 18 WPM. And, yes, each character sent and copied individually.
Reply to a comment by : AA4MB on 2018-07-25

> AA4MB: You missed my point. Possibly, I missed some of it. I probably did a rather poor job agreeing with a great deal of it, too. I think that the thrust of what was in my head was, history. For me, history is yesterday and everything before it. Without a shadow of doubt whatsoever, you're right: high speed CW ops in the day by and large learned it professionally or in the military. They had to get it right, 100%. Lives depended upon it in both professions. I think you missed MY point in that CW as a profession and avocation is, quite certainly dead. I guess the point could be made that people that make keyers and paddles even today are making money from others 'doing' CW, but there just isn't a heck of a big market for it going foward from the 'making a living sending and receiving it' aspect. I'll parahprase W1TTT in restating that it's just a hobby and not a living. To your point about all those ever running CW back to when men started rubbing sticks together for fire having learned it in the military or for professional reasons ... sure. That's likely unassailable information. I, for one, would love to have the benefit of having some of these folks in their heyday in a knock down/drag out with high speed contesters to see who was best. We both know who would come out on top. Contesters never have had to copy 5 letter groups and get it right 100% of the time. Correct info on Vibroplex, McElroy and any number of other high speed keys, too. I've never heard that the Enigma machine was originally intended for business use - that's intriguing. Thanks a lot, brother - you're going to keep me up late tonight reading about that, now. :) N9LCD talked about 18 wpm being the standard on maritime and (some) military traffic, etc., back in 'the day.' As a young pup of 59 not having a shortwave capable receiver for a number of years after I was licensed, I would have thought 18 wpm to be horribly slow for routine commercial or military traffic. The things you find out that you don't know. And I'm still finding out that Donald Rumsfeld was more right that I thought about how we don't know what we don't know. :) Matt, AA4MB
Reply to a comment by : N9LCD on 2018-07-24

In the 80's (before being licensed), I was into SWL'ing. I'd copy CW using a Commodore C64. Most of the CW I copied was maratime -- either shore stations answering ships of ships calling a shore station. The MOST COMMON SPEED was 18 words a minute with a variance of plus or minus 2 WPM. Only on the ham bands and then occasionnaly did I pick-up CW faster than 20 WPM. I worked with a former Army radio operator. During the Cuban missle crisis, he was on the line as an operator for a Pershing missle battery listening for the FIRE! command on a GRC-9. SPEED -- 18 WORDS A MINUTE. The operators had to get right the first time. No requesting repeats, no anticipation when you're receiving commands for a nuclear tipped tactical missle battery!
Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2018-07-22

KA7EKW's comments are spot on. One of my CW mentors was a local ham who worked for the City of St. Louis Police Department sending and receiving license plate and auto registration information. I once visited him at his workplace, where he was using his Eldico electronic keyer at 40 wpm or so. He took his keyer home at night to plug into his ham station. Someone in this discussion referred to a speed record of 195 WPM. That would be EW8GS, current record holder in the Rufz call sign copying competition. By its very nature, copying call signs is one character at a time. With a Morse conversation in a familiar context, yes it is possible to recognize short word sounds, but by an large, copying code is done character by character no matter how fast.
Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-22

AA4MB: You missed my point. That point was that the vast majority of high-speed operators and traffic over the past century or so went character-by-character. No "anticipation." They didn't have any problem doing so. BTW, I'd be willing to bet that if you added up all of the hams (without military or professional experience) worldwide who have ever run CW beyond that necessary to get their licenses, they would be a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of thousands of military and professional operators over the years. Likewise, military and commercial traffic was often above a level that would put contesters to shame, but this was ALL day, EVERY day, for weeks, months and even years on end. Consider that the Vibroplex and other keyers of the type are designed to operate at MINIMUM speeds of 25 - 28 WPM. They weren't made for hams, they were sold to the men (and a few women) who made their living using them at speeds in the 30s and above. With 5-character groups, which usually meant absolutely nothing to the operators (including commercial traffic, BTW -- the Enigma machine was invented to create code groups for business use). Blowing a character by guessing what it was supposed to be could give you something like the Bob Newhart skecth: "To be, or not to be, that is the gzornenplatz." Thus, the point is that it is obviously possible to work high speeds, one character at a time, with high accuracy -- and this is the NORMAL way of doing things.
Reply to a comment by : AA4MB on 2018-07-18

Wow, great article, Paul. I believe that a great deal of it has to do with how old you are when you learn it, too. It was super easy for two of my friends and me to learn high-speed copy when we were 14-16 years old. A third friend (same age) had a complete mental block and could never get past about 10 wpm. We are all individuals, but in reading your post and the responses I was struck by how many things really resonated (pun fully intended) - as well as how many things didn't. I too drive to work and frequently - almost subconsciously - send snippets of billboards or business signs in my head while driving. I can still dope out about 50 wpm in my head (gave up copying to paper when I hit about 23-24 words per minute as I recall). Man, it actually is a struggle to comprehend CW that fast, though. It's not comfortable. For me, it begins to get comfortable back down in the 40 - 45 wpm range. I agree with one other respondent that I seldom hear CW going really QRQ in conversations on the air. 26-27 wpm is about the tops that I hear routinely on 40 meter CW. I sometimes catch myself going 2-3 wpm faster than someone is sending. I listen for comprehension and answers to questions that I'm asking or comments on what I've said. If I hear none, I slow just a bit or put a bit more space between the words. Not the letters - the WORDS. One thing I'd like to address: KA7EKW's comments with respect to the article being 'wrong.' Man, I totally get what you're saying, but would like to add a couple of thoughts. First, if someone is sending at my speed limit and they send, WHIT - yes, absolutely yes, I'm going to anticipate WHITE. However, where I'd venture to say that you're a bit off the mark is that my brain (likely most folks) is capable of saying, "Oh. That wasn't 'white' ... there was another 't' on the end, and it is 'whitt.' My brain is doing that while simultaneously copying the new word, too. I do that routinely. Automatically. Second, we aren't copying random 5 letter groups in conversations. We are copying words. It's perfectly okay to get a letter here and there that's not 100% correct; the brain is also quite capable of putting the word in context and changing the spelling of the word in the very recent past (milliseconds), also. Finally, you're on the mark, yet beginning to miss it with the comment about the vast majority of high-speed ops being from the military and professions which used CW. That might have been the case before, but there are a ton of CW ops - myself and my other two close friends included who never served, yet can hold our own with military trained CW ops. And don't forget the fact that it's been more than a few years since the military trained folks on Morse. As valid as the statement and suppositions are, that too will be gone like the wind in a few short years. In short, not only is it acceptable for us 'non-professional' CW ops to anticipate the next letter, but in a few years we will be all that's left. But you're right - it's not beyond the capability of mere mortals. But I think we really limit ourselves when we 'copy' CW to begin with. LISTEN to it and HEAR it. It truly is a language in and of itself. MM0TWX has a valid comment. Normally, I'd say 'just do it' and be done, but there are folks that have a ceiling past which they cannot copy. I think that most of us have that ceiling. My comment to Pete: my friend, if you can muster 26/27, why bother trying to improve? That's doggone fast enough, in my opinion. I find 40-45 quite easy to comprehend in my head, but is that my 'go to' speed? No, I find myself gravitating toward 24-26 wpm as being quite comfortable to copy. It's actually relaxing to me. Above 30 or so and the relaxation, part begins to wane for me. W9FR: I bow before you, humbled by anyone 'with it' enough to write at 45 wpm! And no way I could get 80 wpm in my head. It almost physically hurts to try. For me, having someone Elmer me by GIVING me a single paddle keyer as a Novice was the key. I routinely would call CQ about 5-10 wpm faster than I could send. And yes, on more than a few occasions I had to cry 'uncle' and say, 'pls QRS a bit' - after all, I was young and stupid like most of you at some point in your life. But it seemed like each 10 QSOs or so would add another WPM under my belt. (Until I got to the point that I couldn't go faster or I just didn't see the point.) I had a lucky set of circumstances (Elmers/learning at a young age) and by the time I was taking my General test, 13 wpm was no barrier at all, as I could do 35 wpm when I wanted. I'm not a member, but the CWOPS CW Academy seems like a worthwhile venture and I'd like to become involved with helping mentor folks like that at some point. I'm regularly awed by people in their 20's, 30's and 40's that are just learning CW and I hope they mentor as well. AA4MB, Matt
KA7EKW2018-07-25
RE: High Speed Morse (HSM)
AA4MB : I must have also done a poor job recognizing agreement.

My dad was a USMC Low-Speed Operator. His rated CW speed was 35 WPM, and he was not primarily a radio operator, because his uncle had warned him to not work too quickly. He made the rating that he needed, and no more. My dad never became a ham.

His uncle had been a ham before the war, and worked at a couple of major Southern California radio stores in the 1930s. HIS speed for chatting was about 60 WPM, his rated speed (by the Army) was well above that, and this skill got him sent some places which weren't much fun, including having to bail out of an airplane over the desert. He told Dad all about it, and Dad decided he would rather be a FIGHTING Marine than a BEEPING Marine.

Codes and ciphers are still very popular for commercial use, even though secure have communications moved from public channels to laptops and smartphones.

The Enigma machine is a "complex substitution" generator. Simple substitution would be A = W, B = C, etc. The Enigma shifts sets, so A may = W this time, then next A = F the next time, etc -- you have to have the pattern key to follow it. Military models added more wheels, to make it even more complex. The wheels were changed to change pattern keys, which could lead to problems when C4CK3 has two meanings to two different recipients working different keys!

The most common business use of Enigma was in the creation of one-time pads for traveling staffers, but some major companies put them in various offices. Cablegrams would be sent in code, to prevent prying eyes from getting the jump on a hot deal or an uncertain client, then decoded with the one-time pad or through the Enigma.

Simple substitution, used by the Allies during WWII, led to the most famous commo goof of the war.

It is common in simple substitution to "pad" traffic, to keep enemy decryption operators from getting bored with their jobs. A short message may be embedded in a message several times the length, with a pattern key used to separate the padding.

Nimitz original traffic to Halsey: WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR

As sent with padding: TURKEY TROTS TO WATER GG FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR RR THE WORLD WONDERS

As delivered to Halsey: FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR X THE WORLD WONDERS

See what happened? When decrypted, the RR that was supposed to separate the wheat from chaff became X, used to separate one sentence from another.

EVERY CHARACTER COUNTS.

BTW, Japan used Enigma machines for diplomatic and military traffic, and the base encryption was broken in 1940 or 1941, before the US was in the war.

As far as 18 WPM, maybe in the 1980s, when RTTY and Telex had largely taken over commercial and maritime traffic, and the military was on ARPANET, but certainly not in the mid-1970s or before. If you hunt around, you can find some recordings of 1960s SKYKING messages (voice) with adjacent-channel CW. None of that was 18 WPM.

And, yes, each character sent and copied individually.

Reply to a comment by : AA4MB on 2018-07-25

> AA4MB: You missed my point. Possibly, I missed some of it. I probably did a rather poor job agreeing with a great deal of it, too. I think that the thrust of what was in my head was, history. For me, history is yesterday and everything before it. Without a shadow of doubt whatsoever, you're right: high speed CW ops in the day by and large learned it professionally or in the military. They had to get it right, 100%. Lives depended upon it in both professions. I think you missed MY point in that CW as a profession and avocation is, quite certainly dead. I guess the point could be made that people that make keyers and paddles even today are making money from others 'doing' CW, but there just isn't a heck of a big market for it going foward from the 'making a living sending and receiving it' aspect. I'll parahprase W1TTT in restating that it's just a hobby and not a living. To your point about all those ever running CW back to when men started rubbing sticks together for fire having learned it in the military or for professional reasons ... sure. That's likely unassailable information. I, for one, would love to have the benefit of having some of these folks in their heyday in a knock down/drag out with high speed contesters to see who was best. We both know who would come out on top. Contesters never have had to copy 5 letter groups and get it right 100% of the time. Correct info on Vibroplex, McElroy and any number of other high speed keys, too. I've never heard that the Enigma machine was originally intended for business use - that's intriguing. Thanks a lot, brother - you're going to keep me up late tonight reading about that, now. :) N9LCD talked about 18 wpm being the standard on maritime and (some) military traffic, etc., back in 'the day.' As a young pup of 59 not having a shortwave capable receiver for a number of years after I was licensed, I would have thought 18 wpm to be horribly slow for routine commercial or military traffic. The things you find out that you don't know. And I'm still finding out that Donald Rumsfeld was more right that I thought about how we don't know what we don't know. :) Matt, AA4MB
Reply to a comment by : N9LCD on 2018-07-24

In the 80's (before being licensed), I was into SWL'ing. I'd copy CW using a Commodore C64. Most of the CW I copied was maratime -- either shore stations answering ships of ships calling a shore station. The MOST COMMON SPEED was 18 words a minute with a variance of plus or minus 2 WPM. Only on the ham bands and then occasionnaly did I pick-up CW faster than 20 WPM. I worked with a former Army radio operator. During the Cuban missle crisis, he was on the line as an operator for a Pershing missle battery listening for the FIRE! command on a GRC-9. SPEED -- 18 WORDS A MINUTE. The operators had to get right the first time. No requesting repeats, no anticipation when you're receiving commands for a nuclear tipped tactical missle battery!
Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2018-07-22

KA7EKW's comments are spot on. One of my CW mentors was a local ham who worked for the City of St. Louis Police Department sending and receiving license plate and auto registration information. I once visited him at his workplace, where he was using his Eldico electronic keyer at 40 wpm or so. He took his keyer home at night to plug into his ham station. Someone in this discussion referred to a speed record of 195 WPM. That would be EW8GS, current record holder in the Rufz call sign copying competition. By its very nature, copying call signs is one character at a time. With a Morse conversation in a familiar context, yes it is possible to recognize short word sounds, but by an large, copying code is done character by character no matter how fast.
Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-22

AA4MB: You missed my point. That point was that the vast majority of high-speed operators and traffic over the past century or so went character-by-character. No "anticipation." They didn't have any problem doing so. BTW, I'd be willing to bet that if you added up all of the hams (without military or professional experience) worldwide who have ever run CW beyond that necessary to get their licenses, they would be a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of thousands of military and professional operators over the years. Likewise, military and commercial traffic was often above a level that would put contesters to shame, but this was ALL day, EVERY day, for weeks, months and even years on end. Consider that the Vibroplex and other keyers of the type are designed to operate at MINIMUM speeds of 25 - 28 WPM. They weren't made for hams, they were sold to the men (and a few women) who made their living using them at speeds in the 30s and above. With 5-character groups, which usually meant absolutely nothing to the operators (including commercial traffic, BTW -- the Enigma machine was invented to create code groups for business use). Blowing a character by guessing what it was supposed to be could give you something like the Bob Newhart skecth: "To be, or not to be, that is the gzornenplatz." Thus, the point is that it is obviously possible to work high speeds, one character at a time, with high accuracy -- and this is the NORMAL way of doing things.
Reply to a comment by : AA4MB on 2018-07-18

Wow, great article, Paul. I believe that a great deal of it has to do with how old you are when you learn it, too. It was super easy for two of my friends and me to learn high-speed copy when we were 14-16 years old. A third friend (same age) had a complete mental block and could never get past about 10 wpm. We are all individuals, but in reading your post and the responses I was struck by how many things really resonated (pun fully intended) - as well as how many things didn't. I too drive to work and frequently - almost subconsciously - send snippets of billboards or business signs in my head while driving. I can still dope out about 50 wpm in my head (gave up copying to paper when I hit about 23-24 words per minute as I recall). Man, it actually is a struggle to comprehend CW that fast, though. It's not comfortable. For me, it begins to get comfortable back down in the 40 - 45 wpm range. I agree with one other respondent that I seldom hear CW going really QRQ in conversations on the air. 26-27 wpm is about the tops that I hear routinely on 40 meter CW. I sometimes catch myself going 2-3 wpm faster than someone is sending. I listen for comprehension and answers to questions that I'm asking or comments on what I've said. If I hear none, I slow just a bit or put a bit more space between the words. Not the letters - the WORDS. One thing I'd like to address: KA7EKW's comments with respect to the article being 'wrong.' Man, I totally get what you're saying, but would like to add a couple of thoughts. First, if someone is sending at my speed limit and they send, WHIT - yes, absolutely yes, I'm going to anticipate WHITE. However, where I'd venture to say that you're a bit off the mark is that my brain (likely most folks) is capable of saying, "Oh. That wasn't 'white' ... there was another 't' on the end, and it is 'whitt.' My brain is doing that while simultaneously copying the new word, too. I do that routinely. Automatically. Second, we aren't copying random 5 letter groups in conversations. We are copying words. It's perfectly okay to get a letter here and there that's not 100% correct; the brain is also quite capable of putting the word in context and changing the spelling of the word in the very recent past (milliseconds), also. Finally, you're on the mark, yet beginning to miss it with the comment about the vast majority of high-speed ops being from the military and professions which used CW. That might have been the case before, but there are a ton of CW ops - myself and my other two close friends included who never served, yet can hold our own with military trained CW ops. And don't forget the fact that it's been more than a few years since the military trained folks on Morse. As valid as the statement and suppositions are, that too will be gone like the wind in a few short years. In short, not only is it acceptable for us 'non-professional' CW ops to anticipate the next letter, but in a few years we will be all that's left. But you're right - it's not beyond the capability of mere mortals. But I think we really limit ourselves when we 'copy' CW to begin with. LISTEN to it and HEAR it. It truly is a language in and of itself. MM0TWX has a valid comment. Normally, I'd say 'just do it' and be done, but there are folks that have a ceiling past which they cannot copy. I think that most of us have that ceiling. My comment to Pete: my friend, if you can muster 26/27, why bother trying to improve? That's doggone fast enough, in my opinion. I find 40-45 quite easy to comprehend in my head, but is that my 'go to' speed? No, I find myself gravitating toward 24-26 wpm as being quite comfortable to copy. It's actually relaxing to me. Above 30 or so and the relaxation, part begins to wane for me. W9FR: I bow before you, humbled by anyone 'with it' enough to write at 45 wpm! And no way I could get 80 wpm in my head. It almost physically hurts to try. For me, having someone Elmer me by GIVING me a single paddle keyer as a Novice was the key. I routinely would call CQ about 5-10 wpm faster than I could send. And yes, on more than a few occasions I had to cry 'uncle' and say, 'pls QRS a bit' - after all, I was young and stupid like most of you at some point in your life. But it seemed like each 10 QSOs or so would add another WPM under my belt. (Until I got to the point that I couldn't go faster or I just didn't see the point.) I had a lucky set of circumstances (Elmers/learning at a young age) and by the time I was taking my General test, 13 wpm was no barrier at all, as I could do 35 wpm when I wanted. I'm not a member, but the CWOPS CW Academy seems like a worthwhile venture and I'd like to become involved with helping mentor folks like that at some point. I'm regularly awed by people in their 20's, 30's and 40's that are just learning CW and I hope they mentor as well. AA4MB, Matt
AA4MB2018-07-25
RE: High Speed Morse (HSM)
> AA4MB: You missed my point.
Possibly, I missed some of it. I probably did a rather poor job agreeing with a great deal of it, too. I think that the thrust of what was in my head was, history.

For me, history is yesterday and everything before it. Without a shadow of doubt whatsoever, you're right: high speed CW ops in the day by and large learned it professionally or in the military. They had to get it right, 100%. Lives depended upon it in both professions. I think you missed MY point in that CW as a profession and avocation is, quite certainly dead. I guess the point could be made that people that make keyers and paddles even today are making money from others 'doing' CW, but there just isn't a heck of a big market for it going foward from the 'making a living sending and receiving it' aspect. I'll parahprase W1TTT in restating that it's just a hobby and not a living.

To your point about all those ever running CW back to when men started rubbing sticks together for fire having learned it in the military or for professional reasons ... sure. That's likely unassailable information. I, for one, would love to have the benefit of having some of these folks in their heyday in a knock down/drag out with high speed contesters to see who was best. We both know who would come out on top. Contesters never have had to copy 5 letter groups and get it right 100% of the time.

Correct info on Vibroplex, McElroy and any number of other high speed keys, too. I've never heard that the Enigma machine was originally intended for business use - that's intriguing. Thanks a lot, brother - you're going to keep me up late tonight reading about that, now. :)

N9LCD talked about 18 wpm being the standard on maritime and (some) military traffic, etc., back in 'the day.' As a young pup of 59 not having a shortwave capable receiver for a number of years after I was licensed, I would have thought 18 wpm to be horribly slow for routine commercial or military traffic. The things you find out that you don't know. And I'm still finding out that Donald Rumsfeld was more right that I thought about how we don't know what we don't know.

:)

Matt, AA4MB
Reply to a comment by : N9LCD on 2018-07-24

In the 80's (before being licensed), I was into SWL'ing. I'd copy CW using a Commodore C64. Most of the CW I copied was maratime -- either shore stations answering ships of ships calling a shore station. The MOST COMMON SPEED was 18 words a minute with a variance of plus or minus 2 WPM. Only on the ham bands and then occasionnaly did I pick-up CW faster than 20 WPM. I worked with a former Army radio operator. During the Cuban missle crisis, he was on the line as an operator for a Pershing missle battery listening for the FIRE! command on a GRC-9. SPEED -- 18 WORDS A MINUTE. The operators had to get right the first time. No requesting repeats, no anticipation when you're receiving commands for a nuclear tipped tactical missle battery!
Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2018-07-22

KA7EKW's comments are spot on. One of my CW mentors was a local ham who worked for the City of St. Louis Police Department sending and receiving license plate and auto registration information. I once visited him at his workplace, where he was using his Eldico electronic keyer at 40 wpm or so. He took his keyer home at night to plug into his ham station. Someone in this discussion referred to a speed record of 195 WPM. That would be EW8GS, current record holder in the Rufz call sign copying competition. By its very nature, copying call signs is one character at a time. With a Morse conversation in a familiar context, yes it is possible to recognize short word sounds, but by an large, copying code is done character by character no matter how fast.
Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-22

AA4MB: You missed my point. That point was that the vast majority of high-speed operators and traffic over the past century or so went character-by-character. No "anticipation." They didn't have any problem doing so. BTW, I'd be willing to bet that if you added up all of the hams (without military or professional experience) worldwide who have ever run CW beyond that necessary to get their licenses, they would be a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of thousands of military and professional operators over the years. Likewise, military and commercial traffic was often above a level that would put contesters to shame, but this was ALL day, EVERY day, for weeks, months and even years on end. Consider that the Vibroplex and other keyers of the type are designed to operate at MINIMUM speeds of 25 - 28 WPM. They weren't made for hams, they were sold to the men (and a few women) who made their living using them at speeds in the 30s and above. With 5-character groups, which usually meant absolutely nothing to the operators (including commercial traffic, BTW -- the Enigma machine was invented to create code groups for business use). Blowing a character by guessing what it was supposed to be could give you something like the Bob Newhart skecth: "To be, or not to be, that is the gzornenplatz." Thus, the point is that it is obviously possible to work high speeds, one character at a time, with high accuracy -- and this is the NORMAL way of doing things.
Reply to a comment by : AA4MB on 2018-07-18

Wow, great article, Paul. I believe that a great deal of it has to do with how old you are when you learn it, too. It was super easy for two of my friends and me to learn high-speed copy when we were 14-16 years old. A third friend (same age) had a complete mental block and could never get past about 10 wpm. We are all individuals, but in reading your post and the responses I was struck by how many things really resonated (pun fully intended) - as well as how many things didn't. I too drive to work and frequently - almost subconsciously - send snippets of billboards or business signs in my head while driving. I can still dope out about 50 wpm in my head (gave up copying to paper when I hit about 23-24 words per minute as I recall). Man, it actually is a struggle to comprehend CW that fast, though. It's not comfortable. For me, it begins to get comfortable back down in the 40 - 45 wpm range. I agree with one other respondent that I seldom hear CW going really QRQ in conversations on the air. 26-27 wpm is about the tops that I hear routinely on 40 meter CW. I sometimes catch myself going 2-3 wpm faster than someone is sending. I listen for comprehension and answers to questions that I'm asking or comments on what I've said. If I hear none, I slow just a bit or put a bit more space between the words. Not the letters - the WORDS. One thing I'd like to address: KA7EKW's comments with respect to the article being 'wrong.' Man, I totally get what you're saying, but would like to add a couple of thoughts. First, if someone is sending at my speed limit and they send, WHIT - yes, absolutely yes, I'm going to anticipate WHITE. However, where I'd venture to say that you're a bit off the mark is that my brain (likely most folks) is capable of saying, "Oh. That wasn't 'white' ... there was another 't' on the end, and it is 'whitt.' My brain is doing that while simultaneously copying the new word, too. I do that routinely. Automatically. Second, we aren't copying random 5 letter groups in conversations. We are copying words. It's perfectly okay to get a letter here and there that's not 100% correct; the brain is also quite capable of putting the word in context and changing the spelling of the word in the very recent past (milliseconds), also. Finally, you're on the mark, yet beginning to miss it with the comment about the vast majority of high-speed ops being from the military and professions which used CW. That might have been the case before, but there are a ton of CW ops - myself and my other two close friends included who never served, yet can hold our own with military trained CW ops. And don't forget the fact that it's been more than a few years since the military trained folks on Morse. As valid as the statement and suppositions are, that too will be gone like the wind in a few short years. In short, not only is it acceptable for us 'non-professional' CW ops to anticipate the next letter, but in a few years we will be all that's left. But you're right - it's not beyond the capability of mere mortals. But I think we really limit ourselves when we 'copy' CW to begin with. LISTEN to it and HEAR it. It truly is a language in and of itself. MM0TWX has a valid comment. Normally, I'd say 'just do it' and be done, but there are folks that have a ceiling past which they cannot copy. I think that most of us have that ceiling. My comment to Pete: my friend, if you can muster 26/27, why bother trying to improve? That's doggone fast enough, in my opinion. I find 40-45 quite easy to comprehend in my head, but is that my 'go to' speed? No, I find myself gravitating toward 24-26 wpm as being quite comfortable to copy. It's actually relaxing to me. Above 30 or so and the relaxation, part begins to wane for me. W9FR: I bow before you, humbled by anyone 'with it' enough to write at 45 wpm! And no way I could get 80 wpm in my head. It almost physically hurts to try. For me, having someone Elmer me by GIVING me a single paddle keyer as a Novice was the key. I routinely would call CQ about 5-10 wpm faster than I could send. And yes, on more than a few occasions I had to cry 'uncle' and say, 'pls QRS a bit' - after all, I was young and stupid like most of you at some point in your life. But it seemed like each 10 QSOs or so would add another WPM under my belt. (Until I got to the point that I couldn't go faster or I just didn't see the point.) I had a lucky set of circumstances (Elmers/learning at a young age) and by the time I was taking my General test, 13 wpm was no barrier at all, as I could do 35 wpm when I wanted. I'm not a member, but the CWOPS CW Academy seems like a worthwhile venture and I'd like to become involved with helping mentor folks like that at some point. I'm regularly awed by people in their 20's, 30's and 40's that are just learning CW and I hope they mentor as well. AA4MB, Matt
N9LCD2018-07-24
RE: High Speed Morse (HSM)
In the 80's (before being licensed), I was into SWL'ing. I'd copy CW using a Commodore C64. Most of the CW I copied was maratime -- either shore stations answering ships of ships calling a shore station.

The MOST COMMON SPEED was 18 words a minute with a variance of plus or minus 2 WPM.

Only on the ham bands and then occasionnaly did I pick-up CW faster than 20 WPM.

I worked with a former Army radio operator. During the Cuban missle crisis, he was on the line as an operator for a Pershing missle battery listening for the FIRE! command on a GRC-9.

SPEED -- 18 WORDS A MINUTE. The operators had to get right the first time. No requesting repeats, no anticipation when you're receiving commands for a nuclear tipped tactical missle battery!
Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2018-07-22

KA7EKW's comments are spot on. One of my CW mentors was a local ham who worked for the City of St. Louis Police Department sending and receiving license plate and auto registration information. I once visited him at his workplace, where he was using his Eldico electronic keyer at 40 wpm or so. He took his keyer home at night to plug into his ham station. Someone in this discussion referred to a speed record of 195 WPM. That would be EW8GS, current record holder in the Rufz call sign copying competition. By its very nature, copying call signs is one character at a time. With a Morse conversation in a familiar context, yes it is possible to recognize short word sounds, but by an large, copying code is done character by character no matter how fast.
Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-22

AA4MB: You missed my point. That point was that the vast majority of high-speed operators and traffic over the past century or so went character-by-character. No "anticipation." They didn't have any problem doing so. BTW, I'd be willing to bet that if you added up all of the hams (without military or professional experience) worldwide who have ever run CW beyond that necessary to get their licenses, they would be a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of thousands of military and professional operators over the years. Likewise, military and commercial traffic was often above a level that would put contesters to shame, but this was ALL day, EVERY day, for weeks, months and even years on end. Consider that the Vibroplex and other keyers of the type are designed to operate at MINIMUM speeds of 25 - 28 WPM. They weren't made for hams, they were sold to the men (and a few women) who made their living using them at speeds in the 30s and above. With 5-character groups, which usually meant absolutely nothing to the operators (including commercial traffic, BTW -- the Enigma machine was invented to create code groups for business use). Blowing a character by guessing what it was supposed to be could give you something like the Bob Newhart skecth: "To be, or not to be, that is the gzornenplatz." Thus, the point is that it is obviously possible to work high speeds, one character at a time, with high accuracy -- and this is the NORMAL way of doing things.
Reply to a comment by : AA4MB on 2018-07-18

Wow, great article, Paul. I believe that a great deal of it has to do with how old you are when you learn it, too. It was super easy for two of my friends and me to learn high-speed copy when we were 14-16 years old. A third friend (same age) had a complete mental block and could never get past about 10 wpm. We are all individuals, but in reading your post and the responses I was struck by how many things really resonated (pun fully intended) - as well as how many things didn't. I too drive to work and frequently - almost subconsciously - send snippets of billboards or business signs in my head while driving. I can still dope out about 50 wpm in my head (gave up copying to paper when I hit about 23-24 words per minute as I recall). Man, it actually is a struggle to comprehend CW that fast, though. It's not comfortable. For me, it begins to get comfortable back down in the 40 - 45 wpm range. I agree with one other respondent that I seldom hear CW going really QRQ in conversations on the air. 26-27 wpm is about the tops that I hear routinely on 40 meter CW. I sometimes catch myself going 2-3 wpm faster than someone is sending. I listen for comprehension and answers to questions that I'm asking or comments on what I've said. If I hear none, I slow just a bit or put a bit more space between the words. Not the letters - the WORDS. One thing I'd like to address: KA7EKW's comments with respect to the article being 'wrong.' Man, I totally get what you're saying, but would like to add a couple of thoughts. First, if someone is sending at my speed limit and they send, WHIT - yes, absolutely yes, I'm going to anticipate WHITE. However, where I'd venture to say that you're a bit off the mark is that my brain (likely most folks) is capable of saying, "Oh. That wasn't 'white' ... there was another 't' on the end, and it is 'whitt.' My brain is doing that while simultaneously copying the new word, too. I do that routinely. Automatically. Second, we aren't copying random 5 letter groups in conversations. We are copying words. It's perfectly okay to get a letter here and there that's not 100% correct; the brain is also quite capable of putting the word in context and changing the spelling of the word in the very recent past (milliseconds), also. Finally, you're on the mark, yet beginning to miss it with the comment about the vast majority of high-speed ops being from the military and professions which used CW. That might have been the case before, but there are a ton of CW ops - myself and my other two close friends included who never served, yet can hold our own with military trained CW ops. And don't forget the fact that it's been more than a few years since the military trained folks on Morse. As valid as the statement and suppositions are, that too will be gone like the wind in a few short years. In short, not only is it acceptable for us 'non-professional' CW ops to anticipate the next letter, but in a few years we will be all that's left. But you're right - it's not beyond the capability of mere mortals. But I think we really limit ourselves when we 'copy' CW to begin with. LISTEN to it and HEAR it. It truly is a language in and of itself. MM0TWX has a valid comment. Normally, I'd say 'just do it' and be done, but there are folks that have a ceiling past which they cannot copy. I think that most of us have that ceiling. My comment to Pete: my friend, if you can muster 26/27, why bother trying to improve? That's doggone fast enough, in my opinion. I find 40-45 quite easy to comprehend in my head, but is that my 'go to' speed? No, I find myself gravitating toward 24-26 wpm as being quite comfortable to copy. It's actually relaxing to me. Above 30 or so and the relaxation, part begins to wane for me. W9FR: I bow before you, humbled by anyone 'with it' enough to write at 45 wpm! And no way I could get 80 wpm in my head. It almost physically hurts to try. For me, having someone Elmer me by GIVING me a single paddle keyer as a Novice was the key. I routinely would call CQ about 5-10 wpm faster than I could send. And yes, on more than a few occasions I had to cry 'uncle' and say, 'pls QRS a bit' - after all, I was young and stupid like most of you at some point in your life. But it seemed like each 10 QSOs or so would add another WPM under my belt. (Until I got to the point that I couldn't go faster or I just didn't see the point.) I had a lucky set of circumstances (Elmers/learning at a young age) and by the time I was taking my General test, 13 wpm was no barrier at all, as I could do 35 wpm when I wanted. I'm not a member, but the CWOPS CW Academy seems like a worthwhile venture and I'd like to become involved with helping mentor folks like that at some point. I'm regularly awed by people in their 20's, 30's and 40's that are just learning CW and I hope they mentor as well. AA4MB, Matt
NI0C2018-07-22
RE: High Speed Morse (HSM)
KA7EKW's comments are spot on. One of my CW mentors was a local ham who worked for the City of St. Louis Police Department sending and receiving license plate and auto registration information. I once visited him at his workplace, where he was using his Eldico electronic keyer at 40 wpm or so. He took his keyer home at night to plug into his ham station.

Someone in this discussion referred to a speed record of 195 WPM. That would be EW8GS, current record holder in the Rufz call sign copying competition. By its very nature, copying call signs is one character at a time.

With a Morse conversation in a familiar context, yes it is possible to recognize short word sounds, but by an large, copying code is done character by character no matter how fast.
Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-22

AA4MB: You missed my point. That point was that the vast majority of high-speed operators and traffic over the past century or so went character-by-character. No "anticipation." They didn't have any problem doing so. BTW, I'd be willing to bet that if you added up all of the hams (without military or professional experience) worldwide who have ever run CW beyond that necessary to get their licenses, they would be a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of thousands of military and professional operators over the years. Likewise, military and commercial traffic was often above a level that would put contesters to shame, but this was ALL day, EVERY day, for weeks, months and even years on end. Consider that the Vibroplex and other keyers of the type are designed to operate at MINIMUM speeds of 25 - 28 WPM. They weren't made for hams, they were sold to the men (and a few women) who made their living using them at speeds in the 30s and above. With 5-character groups, which usually meant absolutely nothing to the operators (including commercial traffic, BTW -- the Enigma machine was invented to create code groups for business use). Blowing a character by guessing what it was supposed to be could give you something like the Bob Newhart skecth: "To be, or not to be, that is the gzornenplatz." Thus, the point is that it is obviously possible to work high speeds, one character at a time, with high accuracy -- and this is the NORMAL way of doing things.
Reply to a comment by : AA4MB on 2018-07-18

Wow, great article, Paul. I believe that a great deal of it has to do with how old you are when you learn it, too. It was super easy for two of my friends and me to learn high-speed copy when we were 14-16 years old. A third friend (same age) had a complete mental block and could never get past about 10 wpm. We are all individuals, but in reading your post and the responses I was struck by how many things really resonated (pun fully intended) - as well as how many things didn't. I too drive to work and frequently - almost subconsciously - send snippets of billboards or business signs in my head while driving. I can still dope out about 50 wpm in my head (gave up copying to paper when I hit about 23-24 words per minute as I recall). Man, it actually is a struggle to comprehend CW that fast, though. It's not comfortable. For me, it begins to get comfortable back down in the 40 - 45 wpm range. I agree with one other respondent that I seldom hear CW going really QRQ in conversations on the air. 26-27 wpm is about the tops that I hear routinely on 40 meter CW. I sometimes catch myself going 2-3 wpm faster than someone is sending. I listen for comprehension and answers to questions that I'm asking or comments on what I've said. If I hear none, I slow just a bit or put a bit more space between the words. Not the letters - the WORDS. One thing I'd like to address: KA7EKW's comments with respect to the article being 'wrong.' Man, I totally get what you're saying, but would like to add a couple of thoughts. First, if someone is sending at my speed limit and they send, WHIT - yes, absolutely yes, I'm going to anticipate WHITE. However, where I'd venture to say that you're a bit off the mark is that my brain (likely most folks) is capable of saying, "Oh. That wasn't 'white' ... there was another 't' on the end, and it is 'whitt.' My brain is doing that while simultaneously copying the new word, too. I do that routinely. Automatically. Second, we aren't copying random 5 letter groups in conversations. We are copying words. It's perfectly okay to get a letter here and there that's not 100% correct; the brain is also quite capable of putting the word in context and changing the spelling of the word in the very recent past (milliseconds), also. Finally, you're on the mark, yet beginning to miss it with the comment about the vast majority of high-speed ops being from the military and professions which used CW. That might have been the case before, but there are a ton of CW ops - myself and my other two close friends included who never served, yet can hold our own with military trained CW ops. And don't forget the fact that it's been more than a few years since the military trained folks on Morse. As valid as the statement and suppositions are, that too will be gone like the wind in a few short years. In short, not only is it acceptable for us 'non-professional' CW ops to anticipate the next letter, but in a few years we will be all that's left. But you're right - it's not beyond the capability of mere mortals. But I think we really limit ourselves when we 'copy' CW to begin with. LISTEN to it and HEAR it. It truly is a language in and of itself. MM0TWX has a valid comment. Normally, I'd say 'just do it' and be done, but there are folks that have a ceiling past which they cannot copy. I think that most of us have that ceiling. My comment to Pete: my friend, if you can muster 26/27, why bother trying to improve? That's doggone fast enough, in my opinion. I find 40-45 quite easy to comprehend in my head, but is that my 'go to' speed? No, I find myself gravitating toward 24-26 wpm as being quite comfortable to copy. It's actually relaxing to me. Above 30 or so and the relaxation, part begins to wane for me. W9FR: I bow before you, humbled by anyone 'with it' enough to write at 45 wpm! And no way I could get 80 wpm in my head. It almost physically hurts to try. For me, having someone Elmer me by GIVING me a single paddle keyer as a Novice was the key. I routinely would call CQ about 5-10 wpm faster than I could send. And yes, on more than a few occasions I had to cry 'uncle' and say, 'pls QRS a bit' - after all, I was young and stupid like most of you at some point in your life. But it seemed like each 10 QSOs or so would add another WPM under my belt. (Until I got to the point that I couldn't go faster or I just didn't see the point.) I had a lucky set of circumstances (Elmers/learning at a young age) and by the time I was taking my General test, 13 wpm was no barrier at all, as I could do 35 wpm when I wanted. I'm not a member, but the CWOPS CW Academy seems like a worthwhile venture and I'd like to become involved with helping mentor folks like that at some point. I'm regularly awed by people in their 20's, 30's and 40's that are just learning CW and I hope they mentor as well. AA4MB, Matt
KA7EKW2018-07-22
RE: High Speed Morse (HSM)
AA4MB: You missed my point.

That point was that the vast majority of high-speed operators and traffic over the past century or so went character-by-character. No "anticipation."

They didn't have any problem doing so.

BTW, I'd be willing to bet that if you added up all of the hams (without military or professional experience) worldwide who have ever run CW beyond that necessary to get their licenses, they would be a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of thousands of military and professional operators over the years. Likewise, military and commercial traffic was often above a level that would put contesters to shame, but this was ALL day, EVERY day, for weeks, months and even years on end.

Consider that the Vibroplex and other keyers of the type are designed to operate at MINIMUM speeds of 25 - 28 WPM. They weren't made for hams, they were sold to the men (and a few women) who made their living using them at speeds in the 30s and above.

With 5-character groups, which usually meant absolutely nothing to the operators (including commercial traffic, BTW -- the Enigma machine was invented to create code groups for business use).

Blowing a character by guessing what it was supposed to be could give you something like the Bob Newhart skecth: "To be, or not to be, that is the gzornenplatz."

Thus, the point is that it is obviously possible to work high speeds, one character at a time, with high accuracy -- and this is the NORMAL way of doing things.
Reply to a comment by : AA4MB on 2018-07-18

Wow, great article, Paul. I believe that a great deal of it has to do with how old you are when you learn it, too. It was super easy for two of my friends and me to learn high-speed copy when we were 14-16 years old. A third friend (same age) had a complete mental block and could never get past about 10 wpm. We are all individuals, but in reading your post and the responses I was struck by how many things really resonated (pun fully intended) - as well as how many things didn't. I too drive to work and frequently - almost subconsciously - send snippets of billboards or business signs in my head while driving. I can still dope out about 50 wpm in my head (gave up copying to paper when I hit about 23-24 words per minute as I recall). Man, it actually is a struggle to comprehend CW that fast, though. It's not comfortable. For me, it begins to get comfortable back down in the 40 - 45 wpm range. I agree with one other respondent that I seldom hear CW going really QRQ in conversations on the air. 26-27 wpm is about the tops that I hear routinely on 40 meter CW. I sometimes catch myself going 2-3 wpm faster than someone is sending. I listen for comprehension and answers to questions that I'm asking or comments on what I've said. If I hear none, I slow just a bit or put a bit more space between the words. Not the letters - the WORDS. One thing I'd like to address: KA7EKW's comments with respect to the article being 'wrong.' Man, I totally get what you're saying, but would like to add a couple of thoughts. First, if someone is sending at my speed limit and they send, WHIT - yes, absolutely yes, I'm going to anticipate WHITE. However, where I'd venture to say that you're a bit off the mark is that my brain (likely most folks) is capable of saying, "Oh. That wasn't 'white' ... there was another 't' on the end, and it is 'whitt.' My brain is doing that while simultaneously copying the new word, too. I do that routinely. Automatically. Second, we aren't copying random 5 letter groups in conversations. We are copying words. It's perfectly okay to get a letter here and there that's not 100% correct; the brain is also quite capable of putting the word in context and changing the spelling of the word in the very recent past (milliseconds), also. Finally, you're on the mark, yet beginning to miss it with the comment about the vast majority of high-speed ops being from the military and professions which used CW. That might have been the case before, but there are a ton of CW ops - myself and my other two close friends included who never served, yet can hold our own with military trained CW ops. And don't forget the fact that it's been more than a few years since the military trained folks on Morse. As valid as the statement and suppositions are, that too will be gone like the wind in a few short years. In short, not only is it acceptable for us 'non-professional' CW ops to anticipate the next letter, but in a few years we will be all that's left. But you're right - it's not beyond the capability of mere mortals. But I think we really limit ourselves when we 'copy' CW to begin with. LISTEN to it and HEAR it. It truly is a language in and of itself. MM0TWX has a valid comment. Normally, I'd say 'just do it' and be done, but there are folks that have a ceiling past which they cannot copy. I think that most of us have that ceiling. My comment to Pete: my friend, if you can muster 26/27, why bother trying to improve? That's doggone fast enough, in my opinion. I find 40-45 quite easy to comprehend in my head, but is that my 'go to' speed? No, I find myself gravitating toward 24-26 wpm as being quite comfortable to copy. It's actually relaxing to me. Above 30 or so and the relaxation, part begins to wane for me. W9FR: I bow before you, humbled by anyone 'with it' enough to write at 45 wpm! And no way I could get 80 wpm in my head. It almost physically hurts to try. For me, having someone Elmer me by GIVING me a single paddle keyer as a Novice was the key. I routinely would call CQ about 5-10 wpm faster than I could send. And yes, on more than a few occasions I had to cry 'uncle' and say, 'pls QRS a bit' - after all, I was young and stupid like most of you at some point in your life. But it seemed like each 10 QSOs or so would add another WPM under my belt. (Until I got to the point that I couldn't go faster or I just didn't see the point.) I had a lucky set of circumstances (Elmers/learning at a young age) and by the time I was taking my General test, 13 wpm was no barrier at all, as I could do 35 wpm when I wanted. I'm not a member, but the CWOPS CW Academy seems like a worthwhile venture and I'd like to become involved with helping mentor folks like that at some point. I'm regularly awed by people in their 20's, 30's and 40's that are just learning CW and I hope they mentor as well. AA4MB, Matt
ZL1BBW2018-07-21
RE: High Speed Morse (HSM)
THIS IS WHAT I HAVE ALWAYS REFERRED TO AS GOOD COPY =

PERIOD JULY 20 TO AUGUST 15, 2018 FROM OK1HH. =

GEOMAGNETIC FIELD WILL BE, QUIET ON JULY 26 TO 30, AUGUST 5, 11, 15- QUIET TO UNSETTLED ON AUGUST , 6, 10, 14, QUIET TO ACTIVE ON JULY 31, AUGUST WA, 3, 7 TO 9, 12, UNSETTLED TO ACTIVE ON JULY 20, 22, 24 AND 25- ACTIVE TO DISTURBED ON JULY 21, 23, AUG 2, 13= SOLAR WIN WILL INTENSIFY ON JULY 20 TO 23 AND AUGUST 7 TO =

I KNOW THERE IS 1 MISTAKE IN THERE, AND HAVE DONE A COLL AT THE END TO CORRECT IT, IT WASNT VERY FAST I DONT KNOW 20 - 25, BUT IT MUST BE NEARLY 40 YEARS SINCE I SAT DOWN AND TOOK COPY DIRECT.

WHEN YOU SORT OF GET MOST OF THE WORDS THAT IS A DID YOU GET TYPE OF QSO, NOT IN MY BOOK GOOD COPY.

ACTUALLY HAD A CASE OFF ONE WORD MAKING A BIG DIFFERENCE WE GOT ORDERS TO PROCEED TO MALM TO LOAD FOR THE UK, I THOUGHT IT WAS MALMO AND ..--.. TO CHECK IT BUT THE OP CONFIRMED MALM. THE MASTER SAID MALM WHERE THE ***** IS THAT, YOU HAVE MISSED THE O, SO NO ABSILUTELY SURE ITS MALM, SO GO BACK TO THE OP AND BACK TO THE OFFICE CONFIRM MALM ..--.. AND LOCATION PLEASE. WELL IT WAS THE TINIEST EVER LITTLE VILLAGE UP THE FJORDS IN NORWAY, LUCKY ID DID NOT MAKE IT MALMO :-)

CHEERS GAVIN


Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-17

The article is proven wrong by actual history. Professional and military operators MUST NOT EVER anticipate the way suggested in the article, yet, over the years, they have accounted for the vast majority of high-speed operators (and high-speed traffic). Hams still use a few of the more common code groups, such as "73" and "QSY," but they are inherited from operators who sent and copied each character individually, because ONE CHARACTER wrong could have horrific consequences. WHITE is not the same as WHITT, but the "anticipator" might mistake the one for the other -- after all, there is only a single "dit" or "dah" difference between them. Even sending twice or three times would not bring clarity, if someone were reading by the word instead of by the character. Consider how many times TODAY your spell-checker or URL autofill gave you back something that you didn't want. . . .now imagine what hell that would play with a message being sent as "2885W JJ045 99989 99899 JJ004" etc. Tens of thousands of high speed operators and a billion or so messages sent . . .and each character read separately from all others. If they could do it, it's obviously not beyond the capabilities of mere mortals!
W3TTT2018-07-20
High Speed Morse (HSM)
I will probably get criticised for this comment, but here goes.
Bill Gates famously said "I don't see why anyone would need more than 640K (of memory)". I agree, and I don't see why anyone would need to go faster than 12 wpm.
1. It's just a hobby.
2. I'm in it for the fun and enjoyment, not pain.
3. Only about one percent or less of all hams can copy 30 wpm or faster.
4. Most of them will slow down for me.
5. QRQ fast CW is like learning another language. I already know two languages well, and working on a third.
6. Don't need QRQ.
7. If I needed to go fast, I would email or text. On the radio, I relax.
8. and so on.
9. I remember the 1200 and 2400 baud modems. Even 300 baud modems. Would you like to listen to the modem noise and "copy" what was sent? Theoretically it would be possible to do that. But who would want to? I challenge all you speedy copiers to listen to an old modem and try to copy that... Sounds ridiculous right? So then what is high speed CW copying?
10 I copy all of my CW reception into a notebook, and I keep the notebook as a log of my Ham contacts. I like the fact that I can go back and see what was sent to me, word for word, letter by letter. You head copiers - can you do that?


As for number 3 above . . . for example, SKCC has about 18,000 members. From THEM, only about a tenth or so can go 30 wpm. There are 700,000 or so hams. OK, you do the math. It comes down to the fact that relatively VERY FEW hams can go faster than 25 or 30. And therefore see point 4.

I am happy that all of you have achieved the goal that you were aiming for. Enjoy. I just wanted to offer an opposite opinion on QRQ. I can do 18 solid, and just about 20 wpm or so, myself. But the last number of QSOs have been at 12-15 and maybe a few at 10 or less. And I am happy to do it, and I enjoyed the QSOs and the CW Ham company. Less is more. Slower is nicer!

Anyway, thanks for letting me vent. Now you know how I feel about it. I would also like to be able to copy fast, but it is not worth the trouble to achieve it for me. I know guys who picked up CW is three weeks, (or so he says). I have been doing it for 28 years, and enjoy.

So 73 and see you on the CW bands. Slow down for me, please!!!!
W3TTT


VE3CUI2018-07-19
How True...!
Paul --- and others --- are absolutely correct: high-speed CW is surely the final barrier to truly mastering the code, and I have found that in order to successfully cross that particular threshold, I will simply HAVE to learn to force myself to PUT PEN & PAPER DOWN, and to copy BY EAR ALONE.

But it is so very tempting to "hard copy" what might be sent my way...!

On the other hand, on those occasions when I DO cross my hands (like when the pen has run out of ink!), it is actually surprising how so many bits & pieces of the code that I might be listening to are so very EASY to decipher in my head. Just have to exert the self-discipline needed to "...sit back & relax," & leisurely ENJOY the received transmission, rather than labouriously racing to keep pace with it on paper...
ZS1ZC2018-07-19
RE: High Speed Morse (HSM)
"WHITE is not the same as WHITT, but the "anticipator" might mistake the one for the other -- after all, there is only a single "dit" or "dah" difference between them."

Or in a key sentence you could accidentally send "would" instead of "wouldn't". I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be WHITE. "Sort of a double interpretive." :-)
Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-17

The article is proven wrong by actual history. Professional and military operators MUST NOT EVER anticipate the way suggested in the article, yet, over the years, they have accounted for the vast majority of high-speed operators (and high-speed traffic). Hams still use a few of the more common code groups, such as "73" and "QSY," but they are inherited from operators who sent and copied each character individually, because ONE CHARACTER wrong could have horrific consequences. WHITE is not the same as WHITT, but the "anticipator" might mistake the one for the other -- after all, there is only a single "dit" or "dah" difference between them. Even sending twice or three times would not bring clarity, if someone were reading by the word instead of by the character. Consider how many times TODAY your spell-checker or URL autofill gave you back something that you didn't want. . . .now imagine what hell that would play with a message being sent as "2885W JJ045 99989 99899 JJ004" etc. Tens of thousands of high speed operators and a billion or so messages sent . . .and each character read separately from all others. If they could do it, it's obviously not beyond the capabilities of mere mortals!
AA4MB2018-07-18
High Speed Morse (HSM)
Wow, great article, Paul.

I believe that a great deal of it has to do with how old you are when you learn it, too. It was super easy for two of my friends and me to learn high-speed copy when we were 14-16 years old. A third friend (same age) had a complete mental block and could never get past about 10 wpm. We are all individuals, but in reading your post and the responses I was struck by how many things really resonated (pun fully intended) - as well as how many things didn't. I too drive to work and frequently - almost subconsciously - send snippets of billboards or business signs in my head while driving. I can still dope out about 50 wpm in my head (gave up copying to paper when I hit about 23-24 words per minute as I recall). Man, it actually is a struggle to comprehend CW that fast, though. It's not comfortable. For me, it begins to get comfortable back down in the 40 - 45 wpm range. I agree with one other respondent that I seldom hear CW going really QRQ in conversations on the air. 26-27 wpm is about the tops that I hear routinely on 40 meter CW.

I sometimes catch myself going 2-3 wpm faster than someone is sending. I listen for comprehension and answers to questions that I'm asking or comments on what I've said. If I hear none, I slow just a bit or put a bit more space between the words. Not the letters - the WORDS.

One thing I'd like to address: KA7EKW's comments with respect to the article being 'wrong.' Man, I totally get what you're saying, but would like to add a couple of thoughts. First, if someone is sending at my speed limit and they send, WHIT - yes, absolutely yes, I'm going to anticipate WHITE. However, where I'd venture to say that you're a bit off the mark is that my brain (likely most folks) is capable of saying, "Oh. That wasn't 'white' ... there was another 't' on the end, and it is 'whitt.' My brain is doing that while simultaneously copying the new word, too. I do that routinely. Automatically. Second, we aren't copying random 5 letter groups in conversations. We are copying words. It's perfectly okay to get a letter here and there that's not 100% correct; the brain is also quite capable of putting the word in context and changing the spelling of the word in the very recent past (milliseconds), also. Finally, you're on the mark, yet beginning to miss it with the comment about the vast majority of high-speed ops being from the military and professions which used CW. That might have been the case before, but there are a ton of CW ops - myself and my other two close friends included who never served, yet can hold our own with military trained CW ops. And don't forget the fact that it's been more than a few years since the military trained folks on Morse. As valid as the statement and suppositions are, that too will be gone like the wind in a few short years. In short, not only is it acceptable for us 'non-professional' CW ops to anticipate the next letter, but in a few years we will be all that's left. But you're right - it's not beyond the capability of mere mortals. But I think we really limit ourselves when we 'copy' CW to begin with. LISTEN to it and HEAR it. It truly is a language in and of itself.

MM0TWX has a valid comment. Normally, I'd say 'just do it' and be done, but there are folks that have a ceiling past which they cannot copy. I think that most of us have that ceiling. My comment to Pete: my friend, if you can muster 26/27, why bother trying to improve? That's doggone fast enough, in my opinion. I find 40-45 quite easy to comprehend in my head, but is that my 'go to' speed? No, I find myself gravitating toward 24-26 wpm as being quite comfortable to copy. It's actually relaxing to me. Above 30 or so and the relaxation, part begins to wane for me.

W9FR: I bow before you, humbled by anyone 'with it' enough to write at 45 wpm! And no way I could get 80 wpm in my head. It almost physically hurts to try.

For me, having someone Elmer me by GIVING me a single paddle keyer as a Novice was the key. I routinely would call CQ about 5-10 wpm faster than I could send. And yes, on more than a few occasions I had to cry 'uncle' and say, 'pls QRS a bit' - after all, I was young and stupid like most of you at some point in your life. But it seemed like each 10 QSOs or so would add another WPM under my belt. (Until I got to the point that I couldn't go faster or I just didn't see the point.) I had a lucky set of circumstances (Elmers/learning at a young age) and by the time I was taking my General test, 13 wpm was no barrier at all, as I could do 35 wpm when I wanted.

I'm not a member, but the CWOPS CW Academy seems like a worthwhile venture and I'd like to become involved with helping mentor folks like that at some point. I'm regularly awed by people in their 20's, 30's and 40's that are just learning CW and I hope they mentor as well.

AA4MB, Matt
W9FR2018-07-18
High Speed Morse (HSM)
I had a typo (reflexes?) and left out W9TO. Jim Ricks SK was the founder of the CFO which eventually had 1500 members. The requirements were to copy and send 45 wpm with other members to be nominated for membership. I was #398. George Hart, W1NJM SK held code practice every Sunday evening with speed from 40 to 65 wpm. He had two qualifying runs a year for certificates. They required a minute of solid copy just lijke the FCC exams at the time. KH6IJ SK, Katashi Nose, had many articles published in QST and 73 about high speed cw. Just google him to read them. There are some great internet cw practice sites such as ICW internet cw by AA0HW. He covers a broad range of speeds. As mentioned previously, just always try to copy above your comfortable speed.
W9FR2018-07-18
High Speed Morse (HSM)
Great article. A method I used to learn high speed cw was to mentally send every street sign, business sign and articles I was reading. By using this technique, one can mentally send at what ever speed one desires. The faster the better. The luminary cw operator KH6IJ also suggested that a persons reflexes were a factor in ones ultimate speed cababilities. I was blessed with very fast reflexes and that certainly was a factor in learning cw. I started in 1956 and by 1959 had obtained 35 wpm and 45 wpm certivates by copying for a minute solid with a pencil and paper. These were from W1AW and George Hart W1NJM. I also was certified at 80 wpm head copy by W9EVA the same year. I still routinely mentally send signs and also do the entire alphabet in 4-5 seconds in my head. This technique keeps the sound of cw words in your mind.

In the late 50's and up to the mid 60's, QRQ cw was king on 40 meters with the likes of Jim Ricks WTO { Hallicrafters TO keyer} and many others with average speeds exceeding 60 wpm. It would be nice to see that again, but it will never happen now. I encourage everyone interested in getting faster cw copy to try this method. It worked for me. Now if I could beat the current cw record holder at 194 wpm....dream on!!! He must have extremely fast reflexes.
K7NDE2018-07-17
RE: High Speed Morse (HSM)
EKW - spot on OM...you nailed it!
Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-17

The article is proven wrong by actual history. Professional and military operators MUST NOT EVER anticipate the way suggested in the article, yet, over the years, they have accounted for the vast majority of high-speed operators (and high-speed traffic). Hams still use a few of the more common code groups, such as "73" and "QSY," but they are inherited from operators who sent and copied each character individually, because ONE CHARACTER wrong could have horrific consequences. WHITE is not the same as WHITT, but the "anticipator" might mistake the one for the other -- after all, there is only a single "dit" or "dah" difference between them. Even sending twice or three times would not bring clarity, if someone were reading by the word instead of by the character. Consider how many times TODAY your spell-checker or URL autofill gave you back something that you didn't want. . . .now imagine what hell that would play with a message being sent as "2885W JJ045 99989 99899 JJ004" etc. Tens of thousands of high speed operators and a billion or so messages sent . . .and each character read separately from all others. If they could do it, it's obviously not beyond the capabilities of mere mortals!
MM0TWX2018-07-17
High Speed Morse (HSM)
Why bothering with a difficult, challenging, effective and exhilarating form of communication when we can easily switch off our brain, sit back and watch a computer make contacts for us?

Joking aside, my own experience is that neither active training with the ARRL recordings nor "just doing it" has really helped me past 26/27. I have thousands upon thousands of ragchewing qsos under the bonnet, and still past 30 I am essentially lost. I qualified for the HSC and can hold a good conversation at 25, but I really have to concentrate, and still I miss stuff every now and then. All that after all the QSOs, and 35 years of radio?

I have to conclude that I am simply not made for it, despite the passion.

Thanks for the article.

73 Pete MM0TWX http://www.tbdxc.net
N4OI2018-07-17
RE: High Speed Morse (HSM)
This is a great article and I can relate to most of the principles in my journey to better, faster CW. Especially the concept of higher-speed CW for rag chew QSOs, not just contest exchanges. (But all bets are off if I am using my old Vibroplex bug... my speed is more like a VW bug!)

It may be a function of the times when I can get on the air these summer days, but it seems that CW chats are almost always in the 20 wpm range and rarely higher... I know the concept of matching the speed of the sender, but shouldn't it be OK to challenge each other a bit?

And I really like the concept of anticipation and the analogy to autofill -- I mean, just how important is it that we have exact copy during a general conversation?

Thanks again for the article!

73

Reply to a comment by : N3HEE on 2018-07-17

"There's a very subtle balance of concentration required, almost of not being interested in the meaning of the dots and dashes." Well put. This is a very important concept to grasp when copying code in your head. Not to get too focused on each character or word. You must allow your mind to let the code pass by without too much inspection. Just pick out some words and piece together the context of what the sender is saying to you. Easier said than done but can be achieved with some practice and patience.
Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-17

The article is proven wrong by actual history. Professional and military operators MUST NOT EVER anticipate the way suggested in the article, yet, over the years, they have accounted for the vast majority of high-speed operators (and high-speed traffic). Hams still use a few of the more common code groups, such as "73" and "QSY," but they are inherited from operators who sent and copied each character individually, because ONE CHARACTER wrong could have horrific consequences. WHITE is not the same as WHITT, but the "anticipator" might mistake the one for the other -- after all, there is only a single "dit" or "dah" difference between them. Even sending twice or three times would not bring clarity, if someone were reading by the word instead of by the character. Consider how many times TODAY your spell-checker or URL autofill gave you back something that you didn't want. . . .now imagine what hell that would play with a message being sent as "2885W JJ045 99989 99899 JJ004" etc. Tens of thousands of high speed operators and a billion or so messages sent . . .and each character read separately from all others. If they could do it, it's obviously not beyond the capabilities of mere mortals!
N3HEE2018-07-17
RE: High Speed Morse (HSM)
"There's a very subtle balance of concentration required, almost of not being interested in the meaning of the dots and dashes."

Well put. This is a very important concept to grasp when copying code in your head. Not to get too focused on each character or word. You must allow your mind to let the code pass by without too much inspection. Just pick out some words and piece together the context of what the sender is saying to you. Easier said than done but can be achieved with some practice and patience.
Reply to a comment by : KA7EKW on 2018-07-17

The article is proven wrong by actual history. Professional and military operators MUST NOT EVER anticipate the way suggested in the article, yet, over the years, they have accounted for the vast majority of high-speed operators (and high-speed traffic). Hams still use a few of the more common code groups, such as "73" and "QSY," but they are inherited from operators who sent and copied each character individually, because ONE CHARACTER wrong could have horrific consequences. WHITE is not the same as WHITT, but the "anticipator" might mistake the one for the other -- after all, there is only a single "dit" or "dah" difference between them. Even sending twice or three times would not bring clarity, if someone were reading by the word instead of by the character. Consider how many times TODAY your spell-checker or URL autofill gave you back something that you didn't want. . . .now imagine what hell that would play with a message being sent as "2885W JJ045 99989 99899 JJ004" etc. Tens of thousands of high speed operators and a billion or so messages sent . . .and each character read separately from all others. If they could do it, it's obviously not beyond the capabilities of mere mortals!
KA7EKW2018-07-17
High Speed Morse (HSM)
The article is proven wrong by actual history.

Professional and military operators MUST NOT EVER anticipate the way suggested in the article, yet, over the years, they have accounted for the vast majority of high-speed operators (and high-speed traffic).

Hams still use a few of the more common code groups, such as "73" and "QSY," but they are inherited from operators who sent and copied each character individually, because ONE CHARACTER wrong could have horrific consequences.

WHITE is not the same as WHITT, but the "anticipator" might mistake the one for the other -- after all, there is only a single "dit" or "dah" difference between them. Even sending twice or three times would not bring clarity, if someone were reading by the word instead of by the character.

Consider how many times TODAY your spell-checker or URL autofill gave you back something that you didn't want.

. . .now imagine what hell that would play with a message being sent as "2885W JJ045 99989 99899 JJ004" etc.

Tens of thousands of high speed operators and a billion or so messages sent . . .and each character read separately from all others.

If they could do it, it's obviously not beyond the capabilities of mere mortals!

BURGERLOVER652018-07-16
High Speed Morse (HSM)
Morse code is definitely a language not a series of letters, numbers, and other characters and should be learned as such. When you hear qrz? you are hearing and understanding one sound not seperate letters which is why you don't need to translate it. What is helpful is to learn the 100 most common English words (Google) in morse until they are second nature to you just like qrz?. After that keep adding new words one at a time. Just don't learn words unrelated to ham usage. That helped me many years ago.
K3DGR2018-07-16
High Speed Morse (HSM)
The ONLY way to copy morse is by listening to it and ONLY writing down notes on a small pad.Do NOT write down characters or words like the old way FCC required years ago. I started back in '57 and worked my way up to nearly 50wpm (when condiitons were steady and little QSB). Try and copy a little more than what you feel comfortable with using W1AW as a guide. slow speeds Tue,Thur,..fast speeds Mon,Wed,Fri. Again DO NOT write words or characters, you must learn to copy in your head by listening. There are several good tutor programs out to help,just Google one which fits your needs and practice, Also Investigate the CWops Academy program if interested for developing your speed with one line tutoring QSOs..practice and more practice. Hope to see you on the CW bands for a rag chew!!...73's David, aa3ej, CWops, CFO member...
ZS1ZC2018-07-16
High Speed Morse (HSM)
I hate the phrase, but this really is one of those "just do it" situations. I did recordings using eBook2CW at 40 and 50WPM, and listen to them occasionally during the forty minutes I take to get to work. You can take an unread journal article about anything and end up with a couple of hours of fast CW on your smartphone.

I still don't fully know what the converted 40WPM article was about, but I get common words just like the OP said, as well as longer ones that just "appear" in my mind as they pass by. It's taught me that hearing fast CW is like having waves in the sea wash over you - your mind stays on the immediate wave and doesn't follow the earlier ones that have passed you by. The moment your mind lingers on a word because you can't get it (or because you did and you notice that!) you lose the rhythm. There's a very subtle balance of concentration required, almost of not being interested in the meaning of the dots and dashes. Like holding a soap bubble between your hands, too much effort and it breaks, too little and you lose it. Watch what your mind does as though you're observing yourself decode the CW and you'll see how your own brain slows you down with the slightest internal distraction.

Oddly enough, many of the words I do get appear like new thoughts in my mind, and often when I'm concentrating on some aspect of driving like changing lanes or turning a corner - my brain seems to be working in parallel with whatever I'm doing at the time. It's also strangely relaxing.

That's with the 40WPM... the 50WPM is of course impossible, but I try to hear the gaps between the sounds. When I go back to the 40WPM, although my success isn't much better, the CW just sounds clearer and it's easier to discern between words, they almost take on a visual shape around the text.

Now when I'm on the bands I have good and bad days, sometimes callsigns up to 30WPM just appear in front of my eyes as pictures of the callsign, not a sequence of letters, although sentences are still a struggle. And then there are days when it's still all gibberish...!