"KØHB" wrote in
ink.net:

I humbly sent a break signal, then a crisp and polite "QRS PSE", and
the "Kind Sir" at SUQ slowed down to a stately 30WPM. To this day I
have never sent another QRQ to ANYONE! (That guy may be still out
there waiting for the impertinent sailor to challenge him again!)

Heh heh. During 18 years on the circuits at VCS, Halifax, I can relate
to this. During part of that we were often required to copy long fishing
reports from Russian trawlers operating under license within our 200 mile
zone. These messages could run to 5000 words and more. You did not want
to copy them slowly and the Russian ops (probably KGB-trained) were good.
But when they were sending weather OBS (you know--the standard 5-figure
group synoptic reports), they would just let fly. The messages we'd do
at about 50wpm, but I think they were trying to see just how fast I could
copy an OBS. Never did find one I couldn't get the first time. A year
and a half up north on very fast point-to-point circuits sending upper
air reports gave me that skill. But it's a lost art. Everything is
satellite and RTTY nowadays.


But on the other end of the scale, I came across a vessel on 500khz one
day with a callsign from a certain Caribbean country (not Cuba) that
shall remain unnamed. His code was bad but I managed to get him off onto
480 and listening to me on 484. I was using an AEA Morsematic that would
not slow below 5wpm and this joker kept sending QRS until I bottomed out.
Now I simply cannot send morse with a handkey at less than about 10 and I
keep winding up to 20 all the time even trying to do that. But I could
keep the Morsematic going at 5. But not satisfied, he still insisted
QRS. At that point I gave up. I mean 20 is minimum commercial speed and
this joker was telling me he couldn't read me at 5 with perfect code!

So I said, "OM, if I QRS any more I am stopped." At that point the QSO
was transferred to 2Mhz SSB. His English was better than his CW and his
French actually understandable!


--
Dave Oldridge+
ICQ 1800667
VA7CZ