[HCRA] Learning CW

[Alan Dove]

Hey, folks:

First, it’s awesome that your teenager daughter is into this. You’re clearly raising her right.

Now for the practical matters. Receiving code is much harder than sending, but fortunately there’s an app for that. Search for “Ham Morse” on the iOS App Store. It uses the Koch method, which starts out at 15wpm with only two letters. Once you’re used to decoding those two letters, you add another letter. This works much better than trying to learn the whole alphabet at 5wpm and then speed up. I’m sure there are similar apps for Android devices, just make sure they use the same method. There’s also an excellent free web site called Learn CW Online (http://lcwo.net/). Set up an account and you can do a bunch of different drills, including a complete Koch method course and a port of an old DOS app called Morse that’s designed for building speed.

To work on the sending, you’ll need a key and a code oscillator. For the oscillator, you can just use the sidetone in a radio. Most HF rigs have a configuration where they’ll send a sidetone through the speaker or headphones without transmitting. Not only does that save acquiring a unitasking piece of gear, it also means you’re practicing on the actual radio you’ll use for your first QSO. If that’s not an option, stand-alone oscillators are cheap and plentiful. The ARRL even has a simple kit for one (http://www.arrl.org/shop/ARRL-Morse-Code-Oscillator-Kit). 

Keys are a whole subject of their own. I suggest starting with something simple and cheap, like the standard MFJ key. You can also get that as part of a set that comes with a basic oscillator, all for less than $50. The reason I suggest going cheap is that there’s a very good chance your daughter will want to move up to an electronic keyer if she gets serious about CW, so there’s no sense spending hundreds on a collector’s item that will just gather dust later. If she does decide she wants to stay with a straight key, there’s a whole universe of nifty ones to choose from. My own collection includes a set of Kent paddles plugged into a WinKeyer for day-to-day and contest use, a 1916 Signal Electric brass spark-gap key for Straight Key Night, and a couple of bugs that I just think are cool.

Good luck.

          —Alan (AB1XW, formerly N3IMU)

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Alan Dove, Ph.D.
Web: turbidplaque.com
Phone: 917.273.0544
Skype: alandove
Twitter: @alandove