I can't vouch for my memory on the rate, but I know she was doing it by hand with a single key, and was well respected in the circle. I also did not ever know her call sign, but her name was Tilly Kurtzner and she broadcast from the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
With a straight key, about the fastest you are going to get is maybe 30. 35, maybe not impossible, but I don't think so. 75 is not gonna happen. There's a guy in Finland that can do 50 with an electronic keyer, and he's about the fastest I've heard with a keyer, as that's deep into keyboard territory.
There is (was) a
W3NHI Ruth Marion Kurtzner
W3KBP KURTZNER, EDWARD T
Neither appear to be active licenses anymore.
W3NHI would be her, Eddie was her husband. They are both deceased by now; I believe she passed on in about 1985. Unfortunately, so is my father, so I can't even ask him if he remembered. Thanks for the information!
Get a book and study. It's easy to do.
Look for clubs in your area, many of them offer classes to help you get a license. And based on the number of repeaters in your area I am sure there is a local club or two.
Since my 2013 Repeater Directory lists 3 2m repeaters in Ormond Beach, I would suggest getting a handheld before a dedicated moble. I would get a dual band (VHF/UHF) handheld because there are also 4 UHF repeaters listed in Ormond Beach.
Hal WB3KQU
VA3 COT here - I volunteer at rallies up here and we do all of the communication on 2m rigs.
I have an Icom V-8000, very inexpensive rig, 75W and MIL-spec. My mic went kablooee a couple of year ago, but other than that it has been good. Lots of guys seem to like Yaesu's.
Larson mag-mount 5/8 wave antenna and wire your power right to the battery and you are good to go.
75w? Are you trying too give your neighborhood cancer? 
I hope you drop the power down. I can push 65, but usually I push 5.
N Sperlo wrote: 75w? Are you trying too give your neighborhood cancer?
I use it out in the boonies while volunteering at rallies - I have needed every last watt in a few cases to hit the repeaters.
I just passed my test, now I'm just waiting for my license/ callsign.
I ordered one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-136-174-400-480-Dual-Band/dp/B007H4VT7A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351725231&sr=8-1&keywords=ham+radio
after my test administrator let me play around with his. A nice, solid, cheap radio that does everything I need it to. I figured if a guy with $90,000 worth of radio gear and a 9-year-old daughter with her extra license recommended it, it must be pretty good.
I asked for a mobile setup that would go into Fidel the Trooper for Christmas. If santa doesn't come through, then I'll probably just pony up the dough and order it myself. A handheld will work fine around here (I hit 3 repeaters after I took my test) but in the Ocala National forest I'll need all the power and antenna height I can get. I did ask for a radio with crossband repeat, so my plan is to use my truck as a repeater if I'm in the woods and not with it, for whatever reason.
Congrats!!
Crossband repeat? Drools...
Congrats by the way. I'll have to get the 10 meter antenna up.
NGTD wrote:N Sperlo wrote: 75w? Are you trying too give your neighborhood cancer?I use it out in the boonies while volunteering at rallies - I have needed every last watt in a few cases to hit the repeaters.
Nothing wrong with that. Use what you need. I ran 65 watts once to hit White Deer Texas from Saint Louis Missouri. * brushes shoulder*
Dr. Hess wrote: With a straight key, about the fastest you are going to get is maybe 30. 35....
I read an article on morse operators in the "old days" in Air and Space Smithsonian a few years back that was pretty interesting. The operators were communicating between planes and ground navigation / weather stations.
The interesting part was that they could pick out the identity of an operator though the cadence of their keying. There was also some interesting interaction between the novice and the expert where the expert would blast the novice with furious keying to test him, and once he had established his status layers of respect started to be developed.
It's was interesting in how people can inject personality into something that would normally be considered quite mechanical and cold.
In reply to aircooled:
My dad was a radioman in WWII, and he used to talk about how he could recognize the other operators by their "hand."
Which makes me think, Tommy, about how much he would've loved hearing about your latest interest. You know what's on his grave marker, don't you? Just his name, dates of birth and death, and this: USN RM3, WWII
He was proud of his service, and also of what he did during it. I think you take after him in a lot of ways!
Margie
I realize they will work when cell towers are down, but I still fail to understand the draw to HAM radios. I guess I never need to talk to anyone that bad.
Radio operators seem to run in families.
My grandfather: KØHOG
My uncle: KØHOF
My dad: NØDBA
Myself: KØHOF
I'm really happy that Tom followed through with the interest. He'll learn a ton and soon the trooper will be covered with antennas.
It is not called "hand." It is called "fist." And yes, one can recognize others by their fist, quite easily when a straight key or a bug (semi-automatic pendulum type keyer) is used. A little more difficult with electronic keyers, but still possible.
My friend, Fred Joy, ex W0RSW, now W5 something, was a radio operator at Normandy on a landing ship. LRC I think. After the war, he was radio operator/navigator for the airlines. American or United, I forget. Whichever one was big in the 40's-50's, I suppose. I worked with him at WNU, a coast station in the swampland that handled Morse code communications with ships at sea 1979-80. Fred used to say that coast station operators were dialecticians. We could copy anything, regardless of how bad the fist was. And some of them were REALLY bad, like the dits and dahs the same length, no spacing or timing and the text was all in Greek. On 500 KHz, during a thunderstorm. A point to point operator, on the other hand, was all speed and couldn't really handle all the dialects that a coast station op could.
Margie, you should be quite proud of Tommie. That's a major accomplishment, and he did it in no time at all.
Dr. Hess wrote: Margie, you should be quite proud of Tommie. That's a major accomplishment, and he did it in no time at all.
I second that. He has inspired me to go out and pick up a general book.
The general test isn't that hard. I took it at the same time as my tech test on a whim, and was only 6 questions short of a pass. That's with no studying whatsoever.
In reply to Dr. Hess:
Oh, that's right, I do remember Dad calling it a "fist" now. Darn, already forgetting his stories... and thanks, I am proud of Tommy. :-)
Margie
93gsxturbo wrote: I realize they will work when cell towers are down, but I still fail to understand the draw to HAM radios. I guess I never need to talk to anyone that bad.
Everyone has their reasons. Here are mine:
Practical value:
They can keep me in touch with friends, family, and help, even when I'm well out of cell signal.
In the event of a disaster, they can keep me informed and let me inform others. Situations like Katrina and Sandy are great examples of this.
Intrinsic value:
I find the whole thing fascinating. How radio waves work, how radios work, how the infrustructure works. I've always loved electricity, and this is a natural extension of that.
There is something really cool about being able to talk for hundreds of miles for free. It's the epitome of grassroots.
The HAM community (at least around here) is exceedingly nice, and they're as crazy about their radios as we are about our cars.
Tom Suddard wrote: The HAM community (at least around here) is exceedingly nice, and they're as crazy about their radios as we are about our cars.
Yep. You'll find that across the board... or shall I say, band. 
Congrats on passing. I'd like to see what you come up with. Radios are pretty interesting and cool. I've gotten a crash course on a lot of radio stuff setting up a lot of the comm equipment for this air show in homestead this weekend. A lot of it was UHF and HF stuff with repeaters and so on.
My Baofeng UV-5r got here, and I figured out how to program it. It didn't really come with instructions, so it took me a while to figure it out. Overall, though, it's quite a nice radio. I'm impressed.
Now I'm just waiting on my call sign, apparently it's delayed due to Sandy.
Uh, how do you program it? Did you get the USB cable and software? Drivers are available at www.powerphone.com.cn.
(I ask these things because my UV-5r is in the mail.)
Sucks that your call is delayed. Can you post up pics of your radio? Since both of you ate getting one, my interest is peaking.
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