[GreenKeys] Computing The Speed Of CW

[hunybuny at eskimo.com]

Jeffrey and Bob;

Thanx for the response.

Bob McConnell wrote:
> Jeffrey D Angus wrote:
> 
>>hunybuny at eskimo.com wrote:
>>
>>>Here is a rough example of the speed -vs- the clock times.
>>>The higher speeds may be off because the way I'm finding
>>>the clock speed is to key "dits" on my rig's keyer and
>>>then changing the interrupt speed on the computer until
>>>they match.
>>
>>Ok, a few "basics" first.
>>
>>Dit = 1
>>Dah =3
>>Space between a dit and a dah =1
>>(Might be a bit sketchy here)
>>Space between letters = 2
>>Space between words = 4

Space between letters = 3
Space between words = 5 (although I have seen words = 7)
>>
>>And if I remember right, the standard "one word" is paris.
>>So .--. .- .-. .. ...
>>Should be a total of 48 (including the between word space)
> 
> I believe that speeding up the characters but not the spacing is called 
> Farnsworth (sp?) timing, and it is a standard practice on many code 
> tapes and programs. It can make it easier to move to the next level when 
> first learning the code. But to do it you need two timers, one for the 
> actual bits and a second to trigger the next character.
> 
Yes - that was "coming into being" (as I recall) in the 1960's when it
was realized that trying to go from 5 WPM to 13 WPM (novice to general)
was very difficult to do because the newbie had to adjust for the new
dot and dash speeds.

It was reasoned that if you learned all the characters at 15 WPM but just
spaced them out to equal 5 WPM, once you learned them it would be easier
to slowly shorten the time (spacing) between characters to achieve a
higher rate.

> There are any number of old CW programs around the Internet that include 
> source code that may be freely used, or simply read and studied. Google 
> can find some of them for you. And I know most systems have better 
> timers available than the clock interrupt. But a lot depends on what OS, 
> compiler and libraries you have available. To run something like this 
> under Unix or Linux, I think you would need to have the real-time 
> extensions compiled into the kernel.

I've grabbed some and am in the process of reverse-engineering them :-)
And I am using just the "sleep" utility for timing. It works fine, without
timing errors until the system gets a major demand on it - like opening up
an X-session - but since this computer is dedicated to just play the
e-mail in morse code, and is running in single-user mode, that isn't a problem.

Jeffery's suggestions will probably do it. I think using the "48" (but
with the 3 dots between letters and 5 dots between words) and 4 Hz are
the key. The "48" is the elements for 10 WPM - so (hopefully) 4.8 is 1 WPM
and multiplying that time the WPM I want and dividing the timer by it just
might be when I was missing.

Again, thanx Jeffrey and Bob - and anyone who was thinking about what
might help. This is an enjoyable and interesting forum.

UE,
W6ESE - tony
NNNNZCZC

> Bob McConnell
> N2SPP
> 

-- 
Tony J. Podrasky | So, there I was: standing in the middle of the
                  | Interstate, wearing nothing but a fireman's
                  | helmet, waving a bottle of Old Granddad and a
                  | sawed-off shotgun, minding my own business, when...
                  | Naw - you're probably already heard this one.
                  |                                        -Mark Spence