On Mon, 25 Aug 2008, Richard Knoppow wrote:


"W9HGO" wrote in message
...
GM,

I am a new ham interested in CW and would really like to
find an
operators manual written before the topic of CW started to
be diluted.

I would prefer a 1st or 2nd edition.

TNX
73, Harry
W9HGO -SKCC #4647

Do you mean a Radio Amateurs Handbook? If so look at
this group, some have been advertized in the last couple of
weeks. The books may be helpful if you want to build CW
transmitting equipment but its very simple (one of the
virtues of CW). If you want to learn code there are a lot of
resources on the web.

I thought the question was clear.

The Handbook had to cover everything, so it could never cover
it all in depth. You'd get a copy of "How to Become a Radio Amateur"
to learn the basics, and maybe build that first regen receiver and
single tube transmitter, and learn the code.

If you needed more help, you'd buy "Learning the Radiotelegraph Code";
I never had a copy, I don't know how it compares with more recent
books about learning the Morse code from the ARRL.

You'd buy the Handbook next, to cover technical stuff in more detail.

Then you'd buy the mobile manual if you wanted to go mobile, or the SSB
manual if you were really interested in SSB (especially in the early days
when they covered theory of ssb better than in the later ones that were
mostly construction articles), and you'd get the VHF manual if that was
your interest.

If you were mostly interested in operating, you'd get "Operating an
Amateur Radio Station" which was sort of an extended version of the
"Operating a Station" chapter in the Handbook. I never saw one in
the old days, but my impression was that it was a relatively slim,
like the rest of the topic-specific ARRL books. The current one
is terribly thick.

That's the one he wants, to read up on operating CW when it was
a much bigger part of amateur radio.

The old books have the advantage that they are current with the
era. The state of the Handbook varies, since every time something
new is added to the hobby (and thus the Handbook), something else
gets cut. There was a long period when SSB got short shift, because
the initial surge of SSB was passed and there seemed to be an assumption
that everyone knew the basics. Likely also the rise of commercial SSB
rigs helped. Then building changed, and a lot of people started
building QRP ssb rigs and the ssb chapter improved. Solid state
and even computers came along and helped to better implement the
phasing method, and whammo, the phasing method that had been mostly
a footnote in the Handbook for many years suddenly became more detailed.

Michael VE2BVW