OldSailor wrote:

The only thing lightning fast about CT(R)'s was how fast they could spill a
mug of coffee or a Coke into a TTY or a piece of electronic equipment and
yell "matman"!
Actually the CT rating was more properly known as the crossed swab and
buffer. Of course, we told RM's we talked to god and wrote down what he
said!
I wanted to be an RM, arriving in boot camp with a First Phone/Radar,
General Class ham ticket and 3 years of Navy MARS experience. I was told my
GCT/ARI was too high, so off to ET school which I challenged and finished in
5 weeks, then DS "A" and suddenly I was ranked with the 2 percent of ET/DS
that could read and became a CT (M).
73 Doug K7ABX CTMCS (Retired)


I, too, became a "lightning fast chicken plucker" CT(R) after a few
years as a ham. We seldom spilled our coffee into gear, though we did
beat the c**p out of our mills copying code at 35+ gpm. I think each of
our operators had 3 of those old typewriters, 1 in use and 2 in the shop
for the matmen to try to cobble back together. Fortunately our R390's
were pretty indestructable.

Back to the original topic here, we got so familiar with the "fist" of
each of the operators of the stations we monitored, we could identify
most stations without hearing callsigns. This was even more useful in
telling us when and where units were being rotated.

After a couple of years of copying code like that, I went back to
civilian life and haven't made more than half a dozen cw qsos since.

Wayne, KEØBZ (former CTR2 1966-73)