Interesting speed test

[DonRotolo]

Originally Posted by boomergeek

The data shows that miniQWERTY is ten times faster for the experts and 3-15 times faster for the novices as compared to multi-tap: multitap was used in the Leno youtube.

According to wiki on Morse Code: The fastest speed ever sent by a straight key was achieved in 1942 by Harry Turner W9YZE (d. 1992) who reached 35 WPM in a demonstration at a U.S. Army base. Fastest speeds are a result of "hearing" phrases and sentences rather than words.

mini-QWERTY is fast and accurate for experts and there is no phrase recognition or sentence recognition (or mis-recognition) in the process.

Hey, if you can pick the keyboard, I can pick the keyer. I go for an iambic, thanks. I stick with the 75 WPM statement, too.

Looking at the chart for QWERTY: Have you ever met anyone who could type 150 WPM on anything? I wonder what the world speed record is. As you well know, 75 WPM is rare. Ask around where you work.

And, as others have stated: When you read, you decode the information a word at a time, not a single letter at a time. We're apples to apples here.

Originally Posted by EricH

Think we've got our codes crossed, maybe. Check CW code too; that might be faster. Morse is one, CW is another. Though you might want to use the full name for CW; Wikipedia doesn't have anything under that term...

CW is the type of Radio Frequency (RF) signal being used, it stands for Continuous Wave. A CW signal is then keyed using On-Off-Keying (OOK), Morse code is a common encoding scheme for OOK, there are others.

Compare CW to AM (Amplitude Modulation) or FM (Frequency Modulation), where instead of having an unchanging RF carrier (that is switched on and off) you vary some parameter of the carrier (amplitude or frequency).

CW is what most Hams will call Morse code, although technically inaccurate they are used interchangeable.

Don

PS: The "other life" Al S. refers to is that I write about digital communications for a ham radio magazine. That's why Shannon is a hero of mine, and why I know a little about coding theory and modulation types. Anthony, let me know if you have any questions.