[CW] Sending Better Morse!

[Bill Lanahan]

Today you’d have a lot more room in your sea bag if you just loaded the Precision CW Fistcheck app, by our own DJ7HS. You could hear, see, and get timing stats for every dit/dah/space and then play back an exact copy of your sending to hear what other guy heard (or would have to suffer through). 

BTW what’s a black and white TV lol. 

If new technology like Fistcheck can get me sending half as good as your fist, I’ll be delighted. 

73 wa2nfn

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 19, 2022, at 3:33 PM, David J. J. Ring, Jr. <n1ea at arrl.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> Pardon me if I share some of my delusional past with you. 
> 
> Since I was in all the good Morse code amateur clubs, I mistakenly thought I sent excellent Morse code.  
> 
> It was good but not excellent, the operators at WCC, WSL (known for it's excellent Vibroplex operators - you will hear them on this recording: https://archive.org/details/LastEastboundTrans-atlanticVoyageOfqueenMarygbtt) 
> 
> I had gotten a DGM SRT 2000 keyboard after JE (Jan Edwards, W5EV (SK) recommended it, and I put in a CP Clare mercury wetted 50 VA relay in it so I could key the 200 mA keying circuits on the ships. (photo attached).
> 
> 
> However, in the 1990s I came into possession of a beautiful used SRT-2000 which was a "Send-Receive-Terminal" made by DGM Electronics (Dennis Makovec, WA9CIY) which had a capabilities of sending and receiving Morse, Baudot, and ASCII.  Of course, I took it to sea along with a small 5 inch black and white television set and an RF video modulator for to convert the SRT-2000 video output to a TV signal on Channel 3 or 4, and I was all set to work RTTY as N1EA/MM.  
> 
> But that wasn't much fun, but it WAS different.  Probably not as confusing as using the ship's PHILLIPS STB-750A SITOR terminal to work AMTOR on the amateur bands and when someone accidentally sent Control D (for WRU - Who are you) and they received 10897 WAKL X which was the ship's Automatic Answer Back, but I digress. 
> 
> I also decided to use this as a code learning tool - even after sending and receiving Morse both as an amateur and commercial radiotelegrapher, and I was surprised that when I sent CQ it came out as NN TTET or NN MA or other variations. 
> 
> At first I thought it was the "darned SRT-2000" is a piece of junk but knowing the very high standards of quality - Miliitary Specifications - of this keyboard, I decided to "listen intently to hear MY deficiencies" - and swallowing the lump of pride in my throat, I finally started hearing the letters C as being sent NN or Q as MA, and I tried to improve my coordination, soon the DGM was decoding my bug as CQ. 
> 
> That's what I tried for - to have computer readable semi-automatic sent Morse! I have to say that I've received many compliments even from those whom I considered the best Vibroplex senders I had ever heard, and no doubt it was due to my using the code reader in the DGM SRT 2000 to nudge me into sending better. 
> 
> So while it was embarrassingly unpleasant to the point of my defiant refusal to admit my less than perfect sending was responsible for the errors I saw on the screen, when I admitted it was my timing that was the problem, and set out to change my timing and send perfect enough to have the code reader copy what I was sending, eventually with the outpouring of compliments, the pain of embarrassment stopped and my resolution to correct the timing errors in MY sending was rewarded with better - perhaps near perfect - sending, which was what I always wanted to do. It was a humbling experience though. 
> 
> One of the things I taught myself was to ALWAYS correctly correct an error - because it's good operating procedure -  but also because it's more work which makes ME pay attention to the quality of my sending.  
> 
> If I sent this: "I SENT LIKE TSIS" (Here I send 8 dots - the error signal) and repeat from the last correctly sent word, "I SENT LIKE THIS" (and continued onward!) 
> 
> 73 
> DR 
> N1EA
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> =30=
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