[R-390] Old dogs and new tricks

Tue, 26 Feb 2002 11:33:21 -0500

At 12:23 AM 2/25/02 -0800, you wrote:
>
>Well, I broke down and passed my Technician tonight....I ALSO passed my 
>General (written) tonight)

Congratulations, and welcome to the "fraternity"...

>  need to break down and finish the code now. Are the tapes/CD any good?

I have recently found a code practice method that flies in the face of 
"start slow and work up" philosophy.  The program is freeware.  The method 
is well though out and documented.

See the following links:
SO YOU WANT TO LEARN MORSE CODE
<http://www.sdc.org/~finley/finley.morse.html>

The Morse Trainer by G4FON is at:
<http://www.qsl.net/g4fon/>
(last week he added chirp to the signal if you want it. glowbuggers will be 
delighted.)

For a long article on how to learn code (one megabyte document in .PDF):
The Art & Skill of Radio Telegraphy
   3rd Edition by William G. Pierpont N0HFF
<http://www.faradic.net/~gsraven/links.html>
specifically, under "Online Books:"
(oops. link broken just now.)

On another nice page:
<http://ca.geocities.com/jimcwca/radio/morse.html>
I find it in HTML form not .PDF form
<http://www.geocities.com/gm0rse/n0hff/index.htm>

And Finally I located it in MANY formats digitally at:
<http://www.qsl.net/n9bor/n0hff.htm>

Here is a brief quote from Finley's pages:
  "The pressure to reduce the code-speed requirements came from the 
widespread perception that getting to 13 or 20
wpm is a nearly imsurmountable barrier. That perception is wrong. For 
little more investment of time than it takes
to pass the 5-wpm test, you can gain real, higher-speed code proficiency 
that will enhance your enjoyment of the
hobby.

Most of what you've been told about learning Morse Code is wrong -- dead 
wrong. Amateur radio operators
traditionally have used the slowest, most frustrating, most painful and 
least effective techniques possible for gaining
code proficiency.

You can gain real code proficiency. You can do it in a reasonable amount of 
time and with a minimum of frustration
and pain. In order to do so, you must approach code training from a 
different perspective and use different
techniques from those common among amateurs for the past half century."

Here is an earlier message from the Glowbugs list:

>From: "Brad Hernlem" <[email protected]>
>To: [email protected]
>Cc: [email protected]
>Subject: Re: GB> New Ham
>Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 15:14:39
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Message-ID: <[email protected]>
>X-OriginalArrivalTime: 26 Oct 2001 15:14:40.0196 (UTC) 
>FILETIME=[EEDC9840:01C15E30]
>Sender: [email protected]
>Precedence: bulk
>Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
>Content-Length: 911
>Status:
>
>Jim,
>
>I downloaded the Morse Academy (http://www.ah0a.org) and tried it last 
>night. I had a blast doing keyboard copy (listening to random characters 
>sent and responding by keyboard). Will have to see yet whether this does 
>the trick but the program sure has a lot of nice features.
>
>Thanks for the input.
>
>Brad
>
>From: [email protected]
>
> >  Looks like I have some serious incentive to practice my code copy now.
>
>Some resources online:
>
>http://primera.tamu.edu/people/TAES/mgautreaux/code1.html
>
>and see what N1IRZ has to say.
>
>Also check out:
>
>http://www.qsl.net/n9bor/n0hff.htm
>
>for an excellent online book on the subject, and
>
>http://www.ah0a.org
>
>for code learning shareware
>
>The above authors say it much better than I can.
>
>73 de Jim, N2EY

- Roy Morgan, K1LKY since 1959 - Keep 'em Glowing!
7130 Panorama Drive, Derwood MD 20855
Home: 301-330-8828 Work: Voice: 301-975-3254,  Fax: 301-948-6213
[email protected] --