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AA0HC af0dm asdf987 Balvenie bauerch BH4BTS blesswj08 cwright df7vs Did DL5KIM DL9TK DM7AF dorkoski During5102 EA3HKZ F4DBC Faia hailnoglory IK5TBK internetus IU0VSJ IU2VRG iu8sdi KA0B kc0zps kd8orx kenknaus Leec lw1ens monmontaro mquin OH2CME ON8NL onska opablo Sa3cat SeiRa sq5ez US3IJV VE7ZAX WendyYRX wr3v Yukito zaynnie Zdravko

After 64 years of doing Morse, I thought I knew the answer to this and still sort of do, but I'm having a hard time finding it specified in an official source.
First, I think a WORD is 5 letters. Also, a space counts as a letter. And possibly a numeral and/or punctuation may count as two?
I checked sixties versions of Learning The Radiotelegraph Code and the ARRL License Manual and didn't find anything. Maybe I missed it. Also I looked over the ARRL's page regarding W1AW sessions.

TU/73,

Nick, WA5BDU

https://lcwo.net/forum/553

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Hi.I don't know if this might be useful to you. In the Technical manual TM 11-459 (2 june 1943), pag. 2, I read: At operating speeds of 20 words per minute or higher, the dits, dahs, and spaces of International Morse characters have the following relative lengths:
(1) A dit is used as the unit of duration.
(2) A dah is equal to three units.
(3) The space between elements of any character is one unit.
(4) The space between any two characters is three units.
(5) The space between words or code groups is seven units.
At operating speeds below 20 words per minute the time lengths of the elements and spaces within characters are not increased. The “20-word character” is used with increased spaces between characters and words or groups. Failure to maintain the “20-word character” at these lower operating speeds will increase the student's difficulty in raising his operating speed.
Based on this, I managed to derive the general formula for the effective speed as a function of the delays between letters and words. If you're interested, I can email you a short article on the subject.