Cecil Moore wrote in news:XzIHg.720$Cq4.117
@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net:

Al Klein wrote:
You're preaching to the choir, Dave. I've had to handle foreign
language traffic phonetically by voice and by CW - and I much prefer
CW for that kind of work, even though I prefer voice for most
rag-chewing. As you say, needing it spelled out is quite slow.

I prefer phonetics myself. So are you advocating using the
coercive force of the federal government to enforce your
preferences instead of mine? Of course you are!

Not me. MY federal government dropped the code requirement a while
back--and with my blessing. The sky didn't fall (at least not any
further than it already had). But having used CW professionally for
years, I know both its strengths and its weaknesses. Its main weakness
is that not everyone can do it. PSK31 and PACTOR get a bit of an edge on
it when there is no large ionospheric phase distortion happening, but
require significantly more equipment.

Back in 1976 when I was doing weather observing for a living on Sable
Island, we were required to send the results of two balloon soundings and
hourly surface observations to Halifax by RTTY. At night that 2mhz RTTY
circuit often became impossible. Nor was the AM circuit any good. I
frequently got out a key and sent it on CW. It was actually funny when
one of the department's high mucky-muck techs came out to the island to
fix the problem. I pointed out that verticals were great on 2mhz for a
192 mile path in the daytime but that they got bogged down in DX signals
and QRN at night and suggested that he could improve things by giving us
dipoles at both ends for night use. I also suggested that a properly
designed VHF link would be superior. He laughed at me. Funny thing is,
that man's son went out to Sable afterwards and installed a beacon that I
could ALWAYS hear in Halifax, running 8 watts on 144mhz.

The thing is, you don't always know what is saving a life. Those weather
observations may have made no difference to anything or they may have
made a huge difference to how someone flew a 747.


--
Dave Oldridge+
ICQ 1800667
VA7CZ