In article .net,
w4nti@get says...

"N2EY" wrote in message
...
No, it's not a political protest thread.

Just a description of what it took to be a radio operator at radio station
WAR
back in WW2. Copied from a Yahoo reflector:

This from an article in Radio News of November '42 regarding the radio
station
WAR.

"...The average person thinks of a highly trained radio operator a man who
can
send radiograms with very little confusion and at a fair rate of
speed....say
the messages are actually handled at around fifteen or even twenty words a
minute for a short period of time.

The radio operator on duty at WAR must send or receive or both at a rate
of
more than fifty words a minute during the eight hours of his tour of duty.
He
must understand the delicate equipment such as teletypwriters, radio types
and
siphon recording equipment. He must be able to read manual signals at
more
than thirty words a minute and to handle traffic at this speed if
necessary.
He must be able to read from recording tape at more than fifty words a
minute
and he must be able to operate a teletype machine..."

From [the author's] recollection in 1942 when WAR operators were tested
they
had to touchtype at 100 wpm, use a Kleinschmidt perforator at a high rate
of
speed and copy recorded slip tape at 100 wpm as well as sending and
receiving
manually when the automatic systems would not function.

Operators there at that time included W3GRF(sk), W0DX (sk) W9BRD/VA3ZBB,
W0US
and others.



Real hams. Not these wanabees we have today.

Dan/W4NTI

Yes indeed - I'm still irked about having to pass the 20WPM code for my
extra while a friend of mine skated through when they started lowering
the code standards.

Have I taken soldering iron, cutters, etc. to gear? Sure I have. But
right now I really don't have the time to homebrew gear.