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 you should glance through as it is the best of the four — uses the Morse Code Trainer web tool. How the 16 sessions work out ...
For our last, unstructured session, we’ll do some more sending and copying using these lists of fruits and vegetables, and animals. As with the exercise we did with the state abbreviations, send a word to the next person, they’ll send the word back, “R” if correct. (If they don’t copy, “?” to resend) They’ll send a word to the next person, and so on. Welcome, Session 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 I’ve created a brief tutorial on Morse Runner. On the most basic level, this program is used to practice simple exchanges (call sign + serial number). When it calls you, if you don’t get the full call sign, you can either do nothing and wait for it to resend, hit F7 (?) or try a partial and F5. The partial is useful in a “pileup,” that is, if several stations responded but you only got a partial on one, you’d send what you had and the other stations should ignore it. (In practice, and occasionally in the program, that doesn’t always happen.) The default time run-time in Morse Runner is 60 minutes, but I would not run it more than 10 or 15 minutes because it gets tedious. ...
This is the ad hoc, unscripted part of the course. Welcome, Session01,02,03,04,05,06,07,08,09,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 Bonus homework: If you can, listen to the K1USN SST on Sunday either on air or via Web SDR, see what you can pick off. If you want to try to make an on-air contact, that would be awesome, too. As a reminder, the exchange information is here. In class, let’s try a few exercises with state capitals: (Warmup) Send a two-letter abbreviation to the next person. If they copy, they’ll repeat it back, sender acknowledges with an “R”. Recipient then picks a two-letter abbreviation to send to the next person, and so on. If they don’t copy, send a question mark for al resend. We’ll see if we can do a few quick rounds. ...
For the bonus homework: Compose an amateur radio-related haiku, a three-line poem where the lines are 5, 7, and 5 syllables, respectively. Some examples from a prior class are below. As you practice at home, think of where it would be appropriate to add additional spacing to compensate for the lack of context clues: No propagationUntil someone calls CQThen the bands open CWTAt 40 words per minuteIs too fast for me ...
For the bonus homework: The session includes abbreviations and pro signs. I’ve attached two PDF files. qcodes.pdf has a nice half-page of common abbreviations and some Q codes used in nets, fsd218.pdf, from ARRL has pro signs on the fourth page. Welcome, Session01,02,03,04,05,06,07,08,09,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 Unfortunately, I didn’t write down what I actually mentioned during class. On my pre-class notes I had an exercise where send a Q-code or abbreviation of your choice, then a very short phrase summarizing what it means. The intent of this would be to think about how you’d communicate this concisely. Pick four of them. We’ll likely have repeats – that’s okay. ...
Prepare to send QSO information about the weather, rig (if you don’t have one, what you would buy with unfettered use of the CW Academy AmEx card), and the year you became a ham. Examples: WX IS HVY RAIN AND WIND TEMP IS 50RIG IS KX3HAM SINCE 2015 “ES” is often used as an abbreviation for “AND” (and as an alternative to sending as filler while you compose. Practice sending your own call sign in CW. If you’re feeling adventurous, also practice sending call signs of your classmates. Welcome, Session01,02,03,04,05,06,07,08,09,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 ...
In the official CWOPS Beginner Book, session 11 is divided into copying segments: [Your callsign] de k6rbur rst 579 nr sf name rob hw? [Your callsign] de k6rb k [Your callsign] de n3jt ur rst is 5nn qth mclean va ? Mclean va op is jim de n3jt [Your callsign] de w1rm ur rst 569 569 in ct name is pete bk and sending segments: k6rb de [Your callsign] ur rst 57n in [your city and ST] name is [your name] btu k6rb de [Your callsign] k n3jt de [Your callsign] ur rst 56n in **[your city + ST]**name is [your name] n3jt de [Your callsign] k w1rm de [Your callsign] ur rst 45n wid QRN in **[your city + ST]**name is [your name] w1rm de [Your callsign] k ...
Session 10 covers Q, X, Z and . The audio file (thank you again, Mateo) is here – 25cpm rate, 7wpm Farnsworth spacing. Welcome, Session01,02,03,04,05,06,07,08,09,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 In the official CWOPS Beginner Book, session 10 is divided into copying segments: K, J, 8, 0, X, Q, Z, (five times each) WL, UR, OK, HW?, QRX, RIG, WX, ANT, PWR, KW, NAME, MEMPHIS, NYC, SF, DALLAS, HOUSTON, NM, NJ, CA, UT, AL, AR, IL , IN, ME, MA, CT, CO, QRM, NE, SD, ND, PA, KY, FL, NC, SC, SDGO, LAX, LA, ON, SK, MB, NT, AB, QC, NB, NS, NR, RST, UK, USA, TOKYO, PARIS, LONDON, HAMBURG, SYDNEY, ZL2TT, VK4OM, JE1TRV, BA1CW, KH6LC, AL2A, AA3B , 8044, 7400, 73, U HV QSB, U HV QRM, NAME?, QTH?, QTH IS NY, QTH IS PARIS, PSE QSY TO 7054 ...
Session 9 covers ****, 8, J and K, and introduces the first pro-sign, ****. The audio file (thank you again, Mateo) is here – 25cpm rate, 7wpm Farnsworth spacing. Welcome, Session01,02,03,04,05,06,07,08,09,10,11,12,13,14,15,16 **** is the notation for a pro code. It can also be written with a line drawn above it. When sent, it’s the equivalent of the letters B and T, but without spacing between the letters: illustrated where the yellow box is a space between letters. To my surprise, **** was not listed on Dan’s website, though Dave Casler video briefly says something at the 4:24 mark. ...
Session 8, introduces the letters B and V. (Thanks, Mateo, for sending out the Lesson 8 mp3 file that you can listen to on headphones.) In the official CWOPS Beginner Book, session 8 is divided into copying segments: B, V, 7, 9, / (five times each) vote, at, view, wave, pave, save, vow, valve, solve, volt, vault, bad, body, bore, born, barn, barney, brad, bread, bed, better, best, bill, build, built, bolt, bulb, blame, blend, bland, blow, bv2aa, ba1ro, wb2ae, n6rb/4, w2/ve1ar, ve2/w2le, 6146, 5514, name is bob, name is bill, name is ted, name is vinnie, ur rst is 559, ur rst is 459 ...