[Mldxcc] Sunspot Minimum, 1941

[Jettie Hill]

PEARL HARBOR DAY, DECEMBER 7, 1941.

I got to thinking about December 7, 1941 and by figuring the 11 year sun spot cycle, I figured out that 1941 as being at the bottom of that cycle.  I was working as a high speed CW operator for the army (not in the army) and we had been having a lot of trouble sending traffic to Hawaii.  We had several containers of punched tape for the Islands, but they were unable to copy.  We normally sent CW at 150 to 250 wpm, but could go to 500 if conditions were good.  At about 11 am on December 7th I received a phone call to come to work as Hawaii had been attacked.  When I got to the Presidio of San Francisco, WVY was sending loads of traffic to them. I guess it was one of those rare times, during sun spot minimum that the band opened up and we were able to get rid of the traffic.  I often wonder if there were some messages that might have given them some warning of the attack.  

At that time my job was handling traffic on an Army Air Force net.  This was strictly "Bug" CW at 30-40 wpm.  Although it wasn't long before I was put on the high speed circuit where the minimum requirement was to copy "sight tape" at 60 wpm.  To this day I am amazed that one can copy code visually off of a tape much faster than by ear.

Please take a moment of silence for those that died during December 7th.

73, Jettie

Jettie B. Hill, W6RFF
Roseville, CA 95661-5008
916 783-0383

American Radio Relay League