[UK-CONTEST] Morse dyslexia Top speed 246 wpm?

[Ken Eastty]

>
>
>  As one approaches one's maximum speed, getting S,H and 5 or V and 4,
>  B and 6 etc., confused is not 'morse dyslexia'.  It's entirely
>  normal. They're the most difficult characters to distinguish.
>
>  Get your speed up and you'll stop (say) getting them mixed up at 30
>  wpm and instead start getting them confused at 40 wpm.
>
>  My top speed on RUFZ was done with something like K0MOT; so would
>  most people's be.
>
>  73
>
>  Gerry GI0RTN
>
>

Gerry, congratulations on 80 wpm! It doesn't even start to sound like 
Morse to me until it gets to around 60wpm and has to be a good bit 
slower before I can actually read more than the odd letter, it's a pity 
that so few 'G's take up the challenge.
Can anyone explain how DJ1YFK can manage 246 (two hundred and forty six) 
wpm? I believe that that's just reading a single callsign, never the 
less it's still amazing.
I wonder what Samuel Morse and  Alfred Vale would think about the  
speeds that some people can read the their (modified) code today?

The best speed that I've achieved was with 'W2WI' & 'N0TG' each on a 
single pass & YU1EA which took two attempts.. I find that with longer 
callsigns by the time that I've typed the first few characters I've 
forgotten what the last ones were! To see what was the highest speed 
that I could copy a callsign I cheated a bit by setting the start speed 
higher than I knew that I could copy & eventually the speed came down 
until I was able to read a couple of callsigns. Starting a lower speed 
and gradually building up I can't reach the same speed as I make too 
many errors.

It appears that there are those who are 'natural' Morse operators who 
apparently pick up Morse in a matter of days as opposed to the rest of 
us who despite lots of practise can never achieve much more than ~35 wpm.
I've heard it said that musicians can learn Morse easier than those who 
don't play an instrument, I wonder whether this has been studied and is 
it something to do with the brain is 'wired'? Are the same people good 
at learning languages?
For those who struggle to improve their speed perhaps listening to a 
different tone frequency might help or even having a hearing test.

I can't imaging what it would be like learning  Morse now, I can't 
remember whether I found it difficult when I learnt it at the age of 14 
but I doubt that there were too many stations on the amateur bands 
sending at much more than 15 wpm even in contests but then the summers 
were also better back in the 60's!

73...

Ken

G3LVP