Posts Tagged ‘learning morse code’
The Best CW training app for Android
April 20th, 2016 | 
Author: Morse Trainer for Ham Radio
I'm always on the lookout for useful tools to help increase my copy speed and enjoyment of CW/Morse Code. Training applications for beginners that teach letters and letter groups are great to get started but after you're making QSOs and copying at useful speeds those apps get a little stale.
I recently wrote about using the "Morse News" RSS reader application for PCs. What I liked about Morse News was that it would send the text of news articles as CW. I found it useful as a natural language trainer but I didn't like being tied to my PC during training.
I wanted a similar application for my smart phone.
I'm not sure how I missed the "Morse Trainer for Ham Radio" app up to now but I've been using it for a couple of weeks now and really find it useful.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wolphi.morsetrainer
I have no affiliation with the maker of this application. I just wanted to share.
That's all for now
So lower your power and raise your expectations
73/72
Richard, AA4OO
I'm always on the lookout for useful tools to help increase my copy speed and enjoyment of CW/Morse Code. Training applications for beginners that teach letters and letter groups are great to get started but after you're making QSOs and copying at useful speeds those apps get a little stale.
I recently wrote about using the "Morse News" RSS reader application for PCs. What I liked about Morse News was that it would send the text of news articles as CW. I found it useful as a natural language trainer but I didn't like being tied to my PC during training.
I wanted a similar application for my smart phone.
Just the mobile ticket to CW training
I'm not sure how I missed the "Morse Trainer for Ham Radio" app up to now but I've been using it for a couple of weeks now and really find it useful.
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| Morse Trainer in QSO Text Mode |
Training Modes
This app has all the standard Morse Code training tools such as letter training, letter groups, callsign training etc. It also can send the most common 500 words as well as a random sample QSO training mode. That's all great but what I really find useful is the ability to send your own text that you type or paste into the app and even... wait for it... an ebook reader!
I must really be a geek but I find the ebook reader makes this a must have CW training app for me. I converted some of my ebooks into plain text (using Calibre) and placed them in the CWTrainer's application folder on my smart phone. I then choose the ebook mode, choose a book and it will send it as CW to me and keep track of where I left off. I use this ebook reader mode to break the monotony of my long drive time.
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| ebook mode |
It's great fun to witness the expression of the person beside you at a stoplight hearing Morse Code pouring out of your car. Priceless.
I keep the speed higher than I can comfortably copy so I'm missing some of what is sent. There's nothing like reading an action novel where you're missing half of what's going on. Did Tex get shot or not? I missed that word, hehe.
I keep the speed higher than I can comfortably copy so I'm missing some of what is sent. There's nothing like reading an action novel where you're missing half of what's going on. Did Tex get shot or not? I missed that word, hehe.
While this app doesn't read RSS feeds like Morse News application for PC's the text and ebook reader modes more than make up for it. The only bug to-date that I've noticed on my phone is that if I rotate the phone while it's playing it will reset where it was reading from back to the beginning.
Here's a video from the application's author describing it's functions...
And here's a link to the application in the Google Play store.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wolphi.morsetrainer
I have no affiliation with the maker of this application. I just wanted to share.
That's all for now
So lower your power and raise your expectations
73/72
Richard, AA4OO
Get your news the old fashioned way
Morse News
I'm always looking for ways to improve my CW copy skills. When I'm away from the radio and have some spare time I use a program called Morse News.
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| Morse News interface displaying a "Top 100 words" feed scrolling at the bottom |
It's an application that pulls RSS feeds and translates them to Morse. It has useful configuration options and even allows different "sounders" to be used.
For instance: you can listen to Morse the way railroad and Civil War telegraphers heard it via the clacking Telegraph sounder, or the early 20th century spark gap transmitters.
For instance: you can listen to Morse the way railroad and Civil War telegraphers heard it via the clacking Telegraph sounder, or the early 20th century spark gap transmitters.
The application is free but only runs on Windows computers. I'd love to see something like this for my phone.
Here's the link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/morse-rss-news/files/Morse%20Code%20Tools%203.2/MorseTools32Setup.exe/download
As with all software downloads from an untrusted source use your own best judgement whether to install this software and protect yourself from malware. I haven't detected any malware from my install but that doesn't mean it's not there.
Here's the link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/morse-rss-news/files/Morse%20Code%20Tools%203.2/MorseTools32Setup.exe/download
That's all for now
So lower your power and raise your expectations
72/73
Richard, AA4OO
