Monday, December 28, 2009

Code Practices

I have been planning to do more code practice and I want to buy a KX1 or similar transceiver. But I am very rusty, and for me, my code speed does not justify the investment. I would be embarrassed to put myself on the air.  I try to listen to code while at my bench and workstation, and sometimes have received fun QSO's to try to copy - I am getting faster.

Yesterday I decided to do something about obtaining a MP3 player to contain code lessons as I think I would like to practice while away from the shop and radios, and maybe in the car. Thinking to myself that an investment of, .  . say $150 for an MP3 player would be OK.

Boy, was I pleasantly surprised! (where have I been?)

At Staples, a more than adequate MP3 player (Coby) was only $29, and an even simpler players was only $19, both had 2G's of memory. I went for the $29 version because it had a built in USB connector, like a memory stick. Once pluged in, files are transfer as easy as file copy!

Now, all I need are some MP3 code files. Sometime ago, I found a WEB site that would generated CW MP3 downloadable files from typed text, I'll have looked but can not seem to re-find it.

So, Here-is-to faster code copy,  .  .  .  and you may hear me on CW someday - de WA0UWH K

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4 comments:

  1. Perhaps you would care to try a little program I wrote a few years ago called MorseGen? It will produce Morse practise files of any speed you like, including from text files, and if you download the LAME encoder it will turn them into MP3 files as well.

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  2. The ARRL has code practice files available in mp3 format. Mucho CW!

    see the archives at:
    http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/morse/archive

    All speeds, and the text to check your copy too.

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  3. Hi Eldon. Do you want to borrow my kx1 for a while? Don't worry, I will quit twitching after a short while... :)

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  4. There are a number of links on the dxzone site:

    http://www.dxzone.com/dx20900/mp3-morse-code-practice-files.html

    Let me know if you ever want to practice on air.

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