"Dick Carroll;" wrote in message ...
Brian Kelly wrote:

When I studied for my earliest tests there were no consumer-level
recording methods let alone computers. My only options for practicing
Morse were having somebody hand-send it or copying it off the air.
Which, as a practical matter, meant copying it with a rcvr or forget
it.

Exactly, and with my old ARC 5 receiver you NEVER heard only one signal, the thing was wide open and you
had to pick out which signal you wanted to copy and learn to ignor ethe rest. Sure was good training, I
developed a very
good 'internal filter' at the outset and still retain that skill.

Yessir. Ya had to learn operating skills along with learning just the
code. Whether ya wanted to or not. There was no "pause" button on W1AW
and ya couldn't replay it either.

I saw some *really* off-the-wall Novice rcvrs. One buddy of mine
comandeered an old wooden case Philco BC/SW rcvr which didn't have a
BFO. Musta had a 15 Khz "bandwidth". So he copied the thumps the
speaker cranked out. Some time later he managed to pick up a
half-working grid-dipper and tuned the dipper just off the sides of
the incoming signals and viola, hetrodynes he could copy. As long as
he had his mitts on both tuning knobs. I came along and had a
brainfart. I fished an insulated wire down inside the last IF can and
wound the other end loosely around the GDO coil and tuned the GDO to
455 kHz. Instant BFO. He took it one step further yet and added a
gawdawful narrow passive surplus audio filter and cruised all over
40M with that lashup. The homebrewed TX was another Rube Golberg gem,
some xtal oscillator tube driving a 6146, all of it in a cigar box.

Imagine any nocode even considering jumping thru those hoops just to
get on the air.

The upside was that the Novice bands were absolutely packed with slowspeed code and finding lots of
practice was no problem. You also learned to copy the many and varied 'fists', it was all hand sent, no
one had a keyer, though some used bugs. That provided another experience which developed lifetime
skills that no one today gets. I still enjoy copying hand sent or bug sent code, unless it's *really*
butchered.

Absolutely correct. It goes farther than that though.

As much as a pain in the butt as those days were in a number of
respects that regime had a number of huge advantages over what is
available today to newbies. The Novice bands were actually a very
successful "support group", we had no options but to clump together
and work with each other toward the same objectives. We climbed all
over each other trying to get our speeds up and beat the one-year
clock on our drop-dead tickets.

Boy there was the incentive licensing move from Hell! But it worked
and the only bitching I ever heard was from a few of the OFs who
turned their noses up at the mere thought of allowing newbies to get
on the HF bands with a lousy 5wpm code test. Turned out to be a
non-sequeter for them 'cause the FCC tossed us into our isolated
playpens 'way up the 80 & 40M bands where they didn't have to put up
with us. We *had* to work each other. Clever arrangement in
retrospect.

And in many if not most cases getting a Novice station took a bunch of
self-taught knowledge and work just to get on the air. All of which
were more learning experiences. One did not use a rubber-duckie or any
otjer catalog antennas on 80 . . autotuners . . as if . . digital
*nothing* . .

No doubt a dumb-down proponent or two will scan this diatribe and get
some giggles out of the ramblings of another stuck-in-the-past grouchy
OF. But in the end who will be the **real** losers?

Yeah, there's a "cultural gap", fuggem all, I hope they get just
exactly they want.


I'm still a very strong supporter of learning Morse via the W1AW
code practice sessions.

It's probaby the best training resource around if one owns a receiver, especially after one has learned
basic Morse.

Yup. Lotta newbies have used zero-cost borrowed rcvrs. I'd loan one of
my "spares" to anybody who was genuinely interested in copying W1AW.
I "loaned" my old HQ-120 to the kid accross the street, he then loaned
it some other kid . . . I have no idea wher it finally landed.


Today they transmit computer-generated code
and back then I believe they used tape-generated code so it has always
been quite precise. I'll concede that I'm only around 150 miles from
the station so they boom here on 80M and QRM wasn't/isn't a problem.
Might be more difficult from the west coasts but I don't know.

I've heard them one one band or another everywhere in the USA
that I've listened for them including out on the west coast.

Good. Then they do have big coverage.

w3rv