"Dave Oldridge" wrote in message
9...
"Woody" wrote in
news:%RJGg.27319$uV.13889@trnddc08:

Did someone drop you on your head at birth? The reason 50wpm can save
lives is probably a bit complex for you to get both your functioning
neurons around, but believe me, having done CW for a living for some
decades I do know that it can save lives. And if you're faster than the
average bear at it, you can tell someone on the scene things they need to
know all that much faster.


Possibly, because try as I might, I can't really remember much about that
day.... I had pyloric stenosis, if that counts?

So apparently YOUR answer to this question is that you couldn't send your
name if your own life depended on it.

Now that's true... I'd require a CW setup of some kind in order to send my
name; or anything else for that matter.
Or as previously pointed out, hack up a headphone jack and tippy tap the
wires together. Either way, I don't see my life depending on it at any time,
so I'll just let my CW skills continue to rust.
However; your argument does make me wonder how non-hams even have a chance
at life in this world... ??


Believe me, I get it. I don't think CW ought to be mandatory and it
isn't where I live. I do think people who intend to use it should learn
how to use it properly, though. For CW to be effective, both operators
must be competent. IF they are, they can often transcend barriers of
language that only digital modes can get over. In my own case, the fact
that I could read CW and read written Spanish a bit once enabled me to
render aid to a burning fishing boat. (There were other more routine
examples of where the language barrier was crossed by CW--many messages I
copied were not in English at all, but were readable by their end
recipients).

OK.... so by your own words, CW still didn't save a life... CW mixed with
bad Spanish passed a message. So now we'll have to add a Spanish test.
Thanks a lot.

As for the language thing.... I can copy voice language and hand it off to
another native just as easy and they'll figure it out too.
No CW necessary.

BTW, I noticed you conveniently left out the specific year in which said
burning boat was offshore with an obsolete CW outfit, and how your CW
expertise put out a fire.... but I'm guessing we're talking many a year ago,
so again, a moot point.
Actually,
The boat thing in general is really killing me... If these numb-nuts are
offshore and not on the correct USCG freqs and/or unaware of how to properly
tune their radios in an emergency, then it isn't CW saving lives, it's the
grace of God that somebody happened to be on their freq at that time. But
again, what boats are out there with a CW rig???? That's crazy, bubba. :-)
rb