wrote:
wrote:

It's a much-ballyhooed MYTH that "CW" was essential to
radio comms even during WWII.

Was this a myth, Len?

http://www.eham.net/articles/15064

Oh my, a nice emotional tribute to a father by his son, son
reprinting his dad's poem.

Tell us, Mighty Macho Morseman Miccolis, what YOU did in
World War II in the service of your country?

Tell us what you did in ANY military branch. Tell us what
you did as a civilian for the government.

Can you? I don't think so.

All you can do is crib from OTHERS' websites.

The MAJOR communications modes of World War II were RTTY and
VOICE. RTTY on HF for the brunt of messaging...and to handle
encrypted traffic. Voice between aircraft, between ground
vehicles, between foot soldiers, between all three of those
with the other two.

OOK CW was used, yes, but it was mainly by the USN. You
seem oblivious to the fact that cruiser class and heavier
used RTTY for command traffic and voice 'TBS' since 1940.
Destroyer class and submarines used RTTY later in World
War II (see a display of the 'SIGABA' at the USS Pompanito
floating museum in the Bay Area...a TTY terminal modified
for on-line encryption-decryption...the Pompanito is a
submarine). SOME OOK CW was used in the Pacific Theater
by the AAF during bombing raids over Japan...but the major
comms were still VOICE between formation aircraft, plus
the comms between them and "little friends" (P-51 escorts)
all the way to and from Japan. SOME OOK CW was used on
aircraft ferry missions, handled by specialist radiomen,
but the single-engine aircraft made do with just voice.

If you are going to babble about little portable 'QRP' rigs
(like the mishandled 'Pogo Stick' and the "Angry-Nine"), I'll
just toss in the first handie-talkie (available in early
1940) and the famous SCR-300 walkie-talkie, the backpack
VHF radio used first in Italy then in Europe since 1943.
VOICE, Jimmie, the instant stuff not hampered by having to
write on message forms for the local ground commander to
see...who has to compose a message to send back in reply.
You just don't have ANY training in foot soldiering so quit
trying to sound off like you "know" stuff in an era where
you didn't exist.

In the history of "Magic," the breaking of the Japanese
high-level codes of 1940 to 1945, how did you think the
intercepts got to Op-20-GY in DC? How do you think the
decrypted intercepts were disseminated? By TTY, encrypted
TTY for security. The Navy and the Army did that, the USN
for HF radio relay, USA for wireline and terminal equipment.

Do you really believe a rolling tank is a good place to
send-receive morse code? Try it some time. Ride a tank.
Ride a Bradley. Ride a true OFF-ROAD SUV and do it. In
World War II the armor units used VOICE. Wasn't no time to
futz around playing morseman when some enemy in another tank
is out to destroy you. You just don't have time for retries
in such situations.

Did you think fighter pilots in a furball were going to
do air-air comms in morse? At 200 to 300 Knots airspeed?
You'd be nuts to think so. The medium and heavy bombers had
gunners-first, specialties-second. The radio ops on B-17s
and B-24s were mainly gunners, sometimes having to replace
regular gunners in other positions. Bombardiers and
navigators (both commissioned officers) had to do double-
duty as gunners. The pilots relied on VOICE over their
Command Sets to keep a formation intact.

You can go over to the Army Center for Military History
website and read a bunch of documents on land signals
operations, find out that TTY was still a mainstay for
written comms after 1942, VOICE for the field telephones,
VHF-UHF radio relay for both (even DURING the famous
Battle of the Bulge)...check out the land war in the
Pacific and find out much the same.

Even DURING World War II the days of manual morse code
were beginning to diminish. It went completely out for
comms in less than a half century afterwards. But, not to
worry, for radio history you can always go to the ARRL and
get THEIR version, the one glamorizing beeping during
World War II. Was the ARRL *IN* WW II? Too long ago for
just about all the Newington staff and Directors. YOU
were never in the military service so you just don't know
squat about the time you didn't exist.

As always to you, ByteBrothers famous phrase invoked.