Can this be done??
I have been using a PC program called Morse runner and going to the LCWO website to increase my contest cw receiving speed and keyboard skill. I wanted to take it up a notch to what I consider a must have contest skill. The skill I am referring to is the ability to exchange contest info with my Iambic key ( Begali Contour) and not only the keyboard. Both Morse Runner and the tools from the LCWO site have been a great help with improving my keyboard and receiving speed and moving it forward. What I'm looking for and asking my blog readers input on is......a PC program similar to Morse Runner were I can use my key to interact with the program. Morse Runner sends you a call, you enter the call in the program (it checks you have enter proper call) then a contest report comes your way you enter it and the program sends your report. If all the info checks out as correct you are able to move on the the next contact. Does anyone know of a PC program out there were I can use my key and not keyboard to brush up on my key proficiency within a contest environment.
Oh and by the way of a radio report..... I was on the rig yesterday not much going on the CW portion of 20m and 30m during the early part of the afternoon. I ventured back around 22:00 UTC and 20m was sending some DX my way. Some of the stations heard but I was unable to contact were LZ300MSP (that call is a key full), T77CS, EA3AIZ from Spain struggled to hear my QRP signal but there was just to much QSB at his end. All was not lost DL3DXX heard me in Germany and gave me a 559 report.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].Oh and by the way of a radio report..... I was on the rig yesterday not much going on the CW portion of 20m and 30m during the early part of the afternoon. I ventured back around 22:00 UTC and 20m was sending some DX my way. Some of the stations heard but I was unable to contact were LZ300MSP (that call is a key full), T77CS, EA3AIZ from Spain struggled to hear my QRP signal but there was just to much QSB at his end. All was not lost DL3DXX heard me in Germany and gave me a 559 report.
I’ve had a look myself for similar things and there are ‘chat’ set ups for CW but I’ve not seen anything that you’re talking about Mike. I suppose you’d need more that a few short hours to implement that is a programme.
I was looking for a QSO rather than contest simulator (as RF out from the valley I live in can be ‘interesting’ at times).
Mike,
I do not know of any stand alone software to do that but I authored the software for a standalone keyer chip (YACK = Yet Another CW Keyer) as open source to run on an AVRtiny CPU. The thing has a practice mode which just shoots callsigns and expects you to key them back with the paddle, checking if they arrived correctly. It would be easy to upgrade that to a contest sim mode. Would a chip be an option to solve your requirement or does it have to be a PC application?
73 Jan
Good evening Alex, on my other blog I had a ham introduce a software package that does just what I am looking for!! It only does contest type practice and not QSO but for you it’s worth a go, I am going to be putting it through the paces and will post all about it including the program. So stay tuned!
73 Mike
Good evening Jan, thanks very much for the info about YACK and I will be looking closer at it when I am off work on the weekend. I just had a very fast look at it but was not able to see how it would fit with me. Thanks very Jan for taking the time to let me know about this program.
73, Mike