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February 26th 04, 03:23 AM

PAMNO (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.

Nice trip down mammary lane, but what has this to do with amateur radio?