Wireless Operator Training
Heroes Remember
Wireless Operator Training
We took tests each day, and we were marked on them. And then,
as the majority of the class began to get what the instructor
was sending, he’d up the speed and that way he would eventually
arrive at the desired speed, but he was ... if I remember
correctly, he was at 40 words a minute when he gave us our final
test. And my problem was, I just couldn’t get the code. And
the instructor told me not to worry. He wasn’t worried about
me, he said it was the other guys, ‘cause once I got it, it
would be there for life, and I still remember it. To transmit
was to pound the key as it were, was something that they kind of
left up to the individual. There’s the key - you send it the
best way you can. It was kind of disconcerting because you’re
sitting there looking at the key. Alright dot, dash, dot, dash,
yeah, but you can’t go on like that. So you adopted your own
way. Some guys, they’d just use the fingers, they’d go like that
for the dots, and then use the thumb for the dash. The
instructor sat up at the front and he was, he had a, I guess
you’d call it a console, where you could hook into … any one of
the desks could send him a message if, and ask him for a repeat.
And then in the meantime, we … we’re learning as well how the
navy messages were put together. It wasn’t all … you just
didn’t pick up a phone and say, “Hey butthead! I got a message
for you.” You had to follow a certain procedure and all the
messages were coded in with a priority. They had a heading
which was, I think, two letter groups, and each group meant
something. Either it was for North Atlantic Command, or what
have you. The letters were shorter, numbers were longer like
four, four five one would be,
di di di di da di di di di dat da da da da da,
where in that space that time, you might get
di da dot da dit dit di di da dit da da dit dit dit dit dit dat.
They’d just fire ‘em at ya, left and right. So we preferred the
numbers, and once you got used to them, you could copy a group
behind, that way it just flowed out. So when anybody sent plain
language, you …I was at a total loss at what
this foreign language was they were sending.
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