cw

Morse Runner

Morse Runner is one of a handful of tools (Morse Runner, RufzXP, CW Player, G4FON) that CW Academy uses in its curriculum, primarily with the Intermediate and Advanced classes (though I did try with my Basic), to help them acclimate to rapid head-copying calls they might hear during the event. Since they will be eventually […]

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N1MM+ and CWT

There is also a walkthrough of N1MM+ here that I did for my intermediate class earlier this week. Some definitions CW – stands for continuous wave, a simple method of communication where a signal is either on or off. It uses Morse Code, consisting of dots, dashes, and spaces. A dot is a tone emitted

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CWA Basic: Sessions 14 – 16

Sending in-class: Compose two “Dad Jokes” to send.  For example: “Two guys stole a calendar.  They got six months each.”   (Or: “What do you do with an elephant with three balls?  Walk him and pitch to the rhino.”)    We’ll practice more sending of longer passages.  Revisit the Wikipedia front page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page and pick a couple of

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CWA Basic: Sessions 11-13

We’re at the two-thirds/homestretch-ish point in the class.  The speed creeps up 1 wpm for each the next few sessions, eventually hitting 13.  Remember the overall goals are: having fun, making friends, and picking up a new skill for a lifetime.  Absent from these goals is “beating yourself up because you didn’t hit flawless 13wpm

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CWA Basic: Sessions 8, 9 and 10

For Session 8 sending in class: What are your three most valued (to you) household appliances and/or power tools? (e.g., KitchenAid mixer, coffee grinder, and cordless drill) This weekend are two additional possible contact events for QSOs:1) CQ Magazine World-Wide CW sprint on 160m – The exchange is simply a signal report of 5NN and your

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CWA Basic: Session 6 and 7

As we all have felt, it’s quite normal to feel self-induced pressure at not maintaining perfection and, God forbid, be tempted to drop out and do it another time. A better way of looking at it is “if you stick around, will you be further along in your CW journey (and knowledge of Scottish inventions)?”

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CWA Basic: Sessions 4 and 5

Sessions 4 and 5 repeat the prior sessions, but bump up the Farnsworth speed to 5 then 6. It doesn’t look like a lot until you’re trying to listen! As I mentioned, it’s very common to feel an adrenaline bump when it’s your turn to send.  If you mess up, or are feeling flustered, take

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CWA Basic: Sessions 1 – 3

The basic class — which I really wish existed when I took CW Academy – serves as a bridge between beginner and intermediate.  Its focus is on Instant Character Recognition (ICR), the ability to hear letters (initially) and words (later) as one unit without any additional steps. The bulk of the official syllabus — which

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