On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 19:54:37 GMT, "Woody" wrote:

"Dave Oldridge" wrote in message
59...
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.

I think you missed the point. Even if you didn't know "ola" from
"adios", you can copy Spanish in CW and hand it to the recipient, who
can read it. Try that with a mic.

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.

Really? You can write a spoken language you don't understand well
enough to be read by someone who understands it? Maybe. Maybe not.
In CW, you can.