Category: CW

  • Overland Telegraph – 140 years ago, yesterday!

    An ABC News story today tells of the celebrations in Darwin this week marking the start of the Overland Telegraph on 20th June 1870 when the South Australian parliament voted to dedicate about half its annual budget to building the telegraph line! Barrie Barnes of the SA & NT Morsecodians and others appear in the video accompanying…

  • CW resources

    Via a link to a Facebook page I found two morse related applications (for Windows) here. This page is interesting not just for the RSS Morse and Morse Keyer programs, but also some handy morse related links. I discovered a free pdf book ‘Zen and the Art of Radiotelegraphy’ by Carlo Consoli, IK0YGJ. Interestingly Carlo wrote the book in Italian, translated it…

  • USB morse key

    Via Julian G3ILO news of an Arduino based project to build an inteface to enable direct input to a computer with a morse key. Lots of information can be found here. It looks like a neat little project. I don’t get the feeling it’s going to be offered as a kit or anything. Most of what…

  • Iambic keying: How to?

    Stumbled across interesting YouTube video on “Iambic Keyer and Technique” attempting to teach how to use an Iambic keyer. It’s about 5 1/2 mins long. Another video from IK0YGJ simply shows the sender using a beautiful Begali Sculpture and sending at 50wpm. While I’m at it I should include the link to the 9mins plus video explaining how…

  • The creator of the Continental code

    I stumbled on to a page on Wikipedia about Friedrich Clemens Gerke, (22 Jan 1801 – 21 May 1888) the man responsible for simplifying Vail and Morse’s original telegraphic code. As the wikipedia article explains, “The original Morse code consisted of four different hold durations (the amount of time the key was held down), and some…

  • Portuguese in morse

    This page has a listing of how different alphabets and accented characters are sent with morse including Russian, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese and Korean. I feel an overwhelming urge to change it from its dots and dashes layout to a didah format to reinforce the sound and not the visual structure of the characters. As comprehensive as…

  • Morse Alive!

    Great BBC story on morse code from 2008, mentioned on the FT817 email list by Joe WB7VTY:

  • New CW learning resource

    “Beware the Jabberwock, my son!The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!Beware the Jubjub bird, and shunThe frumious Bandersnatch!” But make sure to check out the new training section on the SKCC site featuring mp3 files prepared by John KF7BYU.So far the following texts are online, some in speeds ranging from 5 up to 50 wpm, along…

  • CW Operator’s QRP Club Inc

    I rejoined the CW Operator’s QRP Club Inc. after a long absence. I was surprised to discover I’m entitled to my original membership no #56. It’s probably been almost two decades. I have fond memories of the Lo-Key magazine, but I’m also keen to have a go at the club’s Milliwatts per Kilometre Award! 10,000km on 5W…

  • Samuel Morse’s 219th birthday

    Samuel Morse was born 219 years ago. But of course credit for devising the code that bears Morse’s name goes to his assistant (machinist & inventor) Alfred Vail. His birthday is 25th September 1807.

  • Start at 35wpm and you’ll copy at 25 in no time

    Fantastic approach: “You can copy 25 wpm in three weeks, with just 15 min a day practice. Start at 35 and work down… You listen, and listen some more. Use the W1AW practice run that starts at 35 wpm. After a few weeks, 25 wpm will sound slow, and you should be able to write…

  • QOTD straight vs paddle

    Quote of the Day from David N1EA in an exchange on the CW list about the merits of a CW newbie starting with a straight key or jumping straight onto a bug or paddle: “A paddle and speed key in the hand of someone who has no feel for Morse sounds pretty ugly when they…