QST, Vol. I, №6, May, 1916, p. 98-99
I have been sitting by my instruments late into the night and saying nothing, but I have done a pile of thinking. I hear pretty much all the boys have to say to each other, and hear these test messages and greetings and inquiries about the condition of somebody's health, and whether or not it will be convenient to come up next week, and a lot of different kinds of sending have passed through my phones. I want to break my periodical silence and bust forth once more in the columns of QST, which I am coming to enjoy more and more.
A while back I remember it was the fashion among some of the smart ones to spell out everything and never use figures. YOU was always spelled out, NIGHT was always spelled right, and never wrong, and the sign in was all blurred together so as to sound like some of the bum commercial operators.
This fashion had its day. Now, we have swung to the other phase of the cycle. Now, it is the fashion to abbreviate and mis-spell every word that can be abbreviated or mis-spelled. HAVE is now HV. NOW is now NW. NIGHT is now NITE. ABOUT is now ABT. HERE is now HR. I tried to get one the other night which had every single word butchered. I could not get the sense with certainty, but had to guess at a lot and I will make it a ten to one shot, that the fellow doing the receiving did a lot of guessing too. It is bad enough to guess any way, when you have to, but to do guessing just for the sake of guessing, always seems to me to be putting a premium on making mistakes. Radio communication requires enough guessing as it is. I am not in favor of taking these chances, but I suppose it is because of the gray hairs on the top of my head, most of which have been brought about by mistakes made as a result of a wrong guess.
The fashion also at the present time runs to a kind of drawling out of dots and stringing on queer kinds of dashes. I know one of our best relay stations, one which is heard all over the eastern part of the country, who has formed the habit of dragging out his sign in so badly that it certainly must be copied wrong by a lot of people. I can take twenty-five a minute from any one of the Navy stations, or WHB, but I cannot take twelve a minute from this young man. And he is some punkins too.
Once in a while a station comes along who seems to think it good business to make a dot sound like a dot, and a dash sound like a dash. An attempt evidently is also made to give rhythm and cadence to the sending. It comes in strong and steady and clear and fast, and you know just what to expect in the way of steadiness and speed, and say, believe me friend, it is great stuff taking it down. I know one amateur whose spark I believe I could read at thirty if he would handle it the way he handles twenty. You can get it through QRM and QRN and the baby crying down stairs, and the phone ringing and the trolley passing, and it sounds like music. And it isn't it queer, this station never sends out a signal unnecessarily. You would think he was paying for his juice, the way he economizes with it.
Now, don't get the idea that a grouch is on the air tonight. I am just dashing this off along about time to go to bed, after listening to an especially choice selection of rotten sending. CUL OM GN SK.