Dit Dit Dit Dit  Dit Dit Tom!  And others, chortle..   
      
      
   EV>02-11-14 08:21 TOM WALKER wrote to ED VANCE about    
      
    TW> There several clever ways to develop the "Rythum" of CW.   
    TW> Unfortunatly ones brain byst be capable. Mine is NOT. A cannot even   
    TW> carry a tune is a Bucket and back in my early life I was a total failure   
    TW> at trying to learn how to dance.   
    TW> I gave up and moved onto other things that I could master.   
      
   It was W5GDK, Dr. George Huebner, the deacon of the Episcopal Church here in   
   College Station, Texas, where I had my first crystal set and 'long wire'   
   antenna at our house in 1948 that I built there at nine years of age that got   
   me interested in ham radio.  There were maybe three or four thousand   
   'residents' of College Station and about six or eight thousand Aggies here at   
   that time.  I noticed that there was a strange looking antenna behind his   
   house he lived in at the church there.  It had two ends and a funny looking   
   insulator in the middle with a funny wire down to the house!  I knocked on the   
   back door to ask what it was!  A woman came to the door and I told her who I   
   was and asked the question.  She said, "Mike, Dr, Huebner isn't here now, but   
   is coming home.  You'll have to come back."  I asked her, "Can I sit on the   
   steps and wait until he is here?"  She said, "Yes!"  So I did.  About ten   
   minutes later I met one of my most precious mentors of my early days.  He told   
   me the story of ham radio.  I asked him, "How can I be a ham radio operator?"    
   He said, "You'll have to learn Morse Code.  Ask your Dad about it."   
      
   I did.  Dad came to Texas A&M College in 1936 from Erie, Pennsylvania, to the   
   Math Department and retired as head of the Math Department in 1974.  We went   
   to Erie every summer and Dad told me, "Mike, ask your Uncle Billy, he can tell   
   you."  I did.  Uncle Bill, William Schuster, was a major financial key person   
   behind Warren Radio of Erie, Emerson, the key radio station of WERC in Erie   
   and the major competitor of Radio Shack.  He smiled hugely at my question and   
   when we came home that summer he gave me a 78RPM record album that taught me   
   how to learn Morse Code.  I still have it in the family history collection.  I   
   got my original Novice license WN5WQN in 1952 before I was 13 late that year.    
   And shortly there after got my General Class to become W5WQN.  From the FCC   
   office where my Dad took me in Houston, Texas.  But getting from 5WPM to 13WPM   
   was a bit of a problem.  Yes, I got my Texas Driver's License at 14 and drove   
   my Model A Ford I had bought at 12 years of age, but before that I noticed   
   something when I was riding with Dad in his car.   
      
   As we went down the streets, there were street signs and advertising signs you   
   could see through the windows!  We lived on Welsh at the time.  AHA! As I   
   spotted a street sign I would mentally convert and tone mouth the Mores Code   
   of the letters on a sign!  Yep, ten or twenty miles an hour was very   
   simple,'.__ . ._.. ... ....' just fine.  But out on Wellborn Road, the   
   original Highway 6 between Houston and Dallas, Texas, up at 50 or more miles   
   an hour was a WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY!  So I began to mentally practice doing   
   all the steet and traffic signs in Morse Code until I could completely do it   
   all no matter how fast he drove.  And it was NO problem getting my Extra Class   
   license that next year.  In the summer, Dad drove me to New York to the FCC   
   and I became the youngest person ever at that time to get a Extra Class. At   
   that time I was bashing a Vibroplex to send stuff, but could copy it a whole   
   lot faster on receive that I could sent it.  I built my first vacuum tube   
   keyer that got me up beyond the Bug Key.  But that still didn't solve the   
   speed issue. I wrote the assembly language code to move the tube keyer up to   
   about 60WPM but that didn't fix the issue!  Couldn't type fast enough. Even my   
   later Heathkit H89 Computer I built couldn't fix that.  But I did get it to   
   read pre-composed complete text lines and so on into Morse Code. Which got my   
   output up to about the 80WPM or 90WPM that I could fully read over the air   
   mentally at that time.   
      
   I still practice doing road signs in Morse Code.  I'm going to be 74 years old   
   this September if I get there, chuckle!  Our family is very highly musical in   
   nature.  My bother Mark was one of Willie Nelson's early competitors but   
   unless you marry you agent and if you have an opera quality voice you ain't   
   going to get there at that time in our music history, grin.  And no I ain't   
   going to compete or test me for my current top speed range, but it's still way   
   above receive at more than 60WPM.   
      
   If you really wanna chip it up, diddle your mouth in Morse Code for the street   
   signs as you drive!  I still have 78RPM Records of WERC stuff from Erie and   
   can play them.  I still have the original HeathKit H89 and still have all the   
   complete station control software that I was originally writing in Assembly   
   Language, converted next into C code and then into HeathBasic with all the   
   original archives at this on what was HDOS.  That Bill Gates got MSDOS from.    
   And I still have the original printed book "Inside OS/2" by Gordon Letwin,   
   with the forward written by Bill Gates, Don't Feed, Poke,Or Tease The Animal   
   that was the sign on Gordon Letwin's door.  Chortle.   
      
   Even non-musical folks can get help from Morse Coding chanting street signs.   
      
   Written in Historic House 66 in College Station, the same house where Dad let   
   me put up my first long wire crystal set antenna end to end over the rooftop   
   line.  And I still have the little wire touch crystal that I used in the   
   crystal set, but not the wire coil I made on the old oatmeal box that let me   
   even hear WOAI from San Antonio on 1200Khz at night on it back then, 150 miles   
   away!  That even relates to that last person to ever die in the Alamo there in   
   San Antonio, Texasm chuckle!   
      
   Mike Luther, W5WQN and FidoNet N117C here still.   
      
      
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