Saturday, November 14, 2009

VIDEO: learn Morse Code (CW) with free software



This is a quick video I made tonight while in the midst of trying to learn Morse Code. I am currently on 18 characters out of a total of 44. It's fun but difficult at the same time. I am using free software called 'Just Learn Morse Code' which I downloaded from this website. It's a handy wee program and you can set the speed and also the number of characters. It starts you off with two characters and you add one when you score above a certain mark each time, usually around 90%. I was at one stage a few months ago up to 21 characters but had to give up learning CW in favour of studying for my amateur radio licence.

Now that I have the licence I would like to be able to operate CW. There seem to be more CW spots on the cluster at any given time than SSB, except during SSB contests. So it's a good way to make contacts when the bands are quieter.

When I am proficient I will take a test at a radio rally and may then apply for a two-letter callsign suffix. You may notice the superior quality of this video. It was shot on my new Canon XHA1 high-definition camcorder. I am impressed!

2 comments:

  1. Hello Anthony, great video, I'm impressed with the quality too. I keep that program in mind as I want to learn CW as well as you do. You can work much more DX with CW that's for shure! By te way, I finished the 80m loop it's working very well on 80m and 40m. If I see you're on the radio I'll send you an e-mail for a sked. 73 Bas PE4BAS

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  2. Bas, my loop was an abject failure for 80m, but it works well on 20m hi hi !! However, I am looking at other options for 80m, such as the Isotron compact antenna which will suit my space restrictions. If you want to do a sked I suggest 40m again - maybe you can email me when you are ready for a sked?

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