[CQ-Contest] Cut number for "3"

[Leigh S. Jones]

Perhaps I was a little quick to make that statement, as I should have 
recalled from my early hamming experience that there was controversy over 
cut numbers.  You see, I learned cut numbers from my father, ex-W6PCL almost 
as early as I learned the rest of the International Morse Code.   I learned 
the Morse Code simultaneously to being taught the alphabet for the first 
time (about age 3).  The first alphabet I ever saw in my life was 
accompanied by the Morse Code and printed on a tiny metal panel on a Morse 
practice set with buzzer and key.   A short time later, in my early years as 
a ham, someone once told me that old timers who used the American Morse Code 
used a different set of cut numbers from the one used in International Morse 
Code.  Probably it was Roger Mace, W6RW or Bill Guimont, whose last callsign 
was W7KW, a couple of my early contest Elmers.  Believe it or not, I 
remember hams who were 40 or 50 years my senior talking about "the 
oldtimers" with some reverence without ever having a sense of the irony I 
was witnessing.

I went home from that conversation and looked up the cut number system in an 
old book that my father gave to me, most likely the 1951 ARRL handbook, and 
found my father's system.  It  simply eliminated all dashes past the first 
dash in each number and substituted and e for 5.  4 and 6 were represented 
by 4 and 6.  It's clear that AC6V's website represents a different system, 
and for some reason it now occurs to me that somewhere in my failing memory 
I've been aware of the AC6V website's system as the American Morse Code cut 
number system and my father's as the International Morse system of cut 
numbers for most of my hamming experience.  If push ever came to shove, I 
suppose that a cut number system used in American Morse Code might predate 
one used in International Morse Code.  That could be wrong.  I primarily 
think of the American Morse Code as the language of landline telegraphy 
while I think of the International Morse Code as the language of radio. 
Perhaps I am overlooking early European landline telegraphy using 
International Morse Code.

But in my 40+ years as a ham, I can't recall ever hearing someone actually 
use cut number representation for the digits 3, 4, 6 , or 7 on the air, and 
I've always known that the confusion between the two systems was part of the 
reason for that.  So I apologize to K1AR for contradicting him, I might more 
correctly have said something like "one of the commonly accepted cut number 
abbreviation for 33 is VV" rather than what I did say.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tree" <tree at kkn.net>
To: <cq-contest at contesting.com>
Sent: Friday, December 01, 2006 5:00 PM
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Cut number for "3"


>
> Leigh, KR6X writes:
>
>> VV is the commonly accepted cut number abbreviation for 33.
>
> I hadn't ever heard this before, but I did some research on the web and
> found this page that lists cut numbers for morse code numbers:
>
> http://www.ac6v.com/morseaids.htm#AB
>
> According to this - the cut number for 3 is "W".
>
> Maybe I worked 40 zones after all - except my logging program won't take
> 44 as a zone.
>
> Tree N6TR
> tree at kkn.net
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