On Mar 26, 2008, at 3:19 PM, Phil Kane wrote:
Robert Tellefsen wrote:
Hi Ron
Looks like we are of the same vintage.
I was a 1952 Novice too.
Count me in that year as well. I learned my 5 wpm from and
Instructograph that the HS radio club had. Engineering school and
grad school/employment took up much of my time after that and I
stayed a Tech until 1962, took the Advanced in 1968 when it again
became available, and 20+ wpm Extra in 1974.
I remember working every day on my code, sturggling up to 13 wpm.
The night before I took the bus into Seattle for the General test, I
had a buddy send me some code practice for a final tune up.
So, he launched into this string of stuff that made no sense to me
at all. I had to ask him, what was he sending? Turns out he was
sending the index to the tube tables in the back of the handbook! :-)
Really had me going 'til I understood what was coming at me.
I was TDY in New York at the time so copying W1AW's code practice
to get to 13 wpm was a snap. They sent tube tables as "pseudo-
groups" and text from QST consisting of whole words starting at the
left-hand side of the line and going backwards to avoid "copying
ahead". It worked!
Great days those were.
Amen, brother.
Add me to the list of those licensed in 1952 (there are a bunch of
us). I borrowed an Instuctograph and had it up to a little over 10
wpm when I went to take the tech test several months later. I
figured I would take the 13 wpm code test at the same time, intending
for it to just be practice. That which resulted in a no-pressure
session and I passed (I did the same thing 25 years later, getting
Extra class instead of Advanced).
73, Bob N7XY (originally WN6SWE)
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