Cw

I purchased a USB adapter to connect my CW paddles (1/8-inch audio plug) to the computer. I can now use Vband on-line chat to practice keying CW with other people.

The adapter simulates Left and Right Ctrl keys with the morse key, and the website interprets that as dits and dahs. It works really well.

I also found Morse Invaders, which is a typing tutor that uses CW: key the word before it hits your city.

Minor Linux Note: I use keyd to remap some keys on my laptop, so be aware how it may mess with the Ctrl Keys.

For this year’s CQ Worldwide CW contest I heard KH6J from Hawaii on 40M, but I couldn’t contact them. Locals weren’t worth anything except for unique CQ zones as multipliers. I kept it to 5W and made 20 contacts on CW. I turned up to send 25wpm, since everyone was going so fast.

I still rely on the excellent decoder in the R1CBU radio UI, but I’ve been practicing reading CW too.

I did a bit of the ARRL 10m Contest all in CW. I keyed with my 3D-printed iambic paddle but relied on the X6100 to decode incoming signals for me.

I made 13 contacts across 10 states/provinces in 4 ITU zones. I used the Web2Cabrillo website to type up my handwritten logs and produce a Cabrillo file to submit to the contest.

KN3I, John, and AF3Z, Jim, were talking on 985 about Sideswiper keys. Technically, it’s a straight key. It’s 2 straight keys together, so it’s not considered an automatic keyer. You can optionally use either key to manually key a dit or a dah. Sideswiper is sometimes called a Cootie Key. It sounds interesting, since it’ll not race me on dits.

I was able to hear a 10M beacon today at 28193.180kHz:

E E E E E VVV DE VE4ARM / B AMATEUR RADIO MUSEUM / AUSTIN MANITOBA / EN 09 E E E

I went camping and activating Pine Grove Furnace, US-1398, and Michaux Forest, US-5471. I stretched the EFHW over the parking lot, because I thought it wouldn’t be busy. I got 21 FT8 contacts and 2 CW contacts to other parks.

I got in W1JMA’s log when they were activating US-7545. on 7047.5kHz. They looked me up in QRZ, so knew my name and location. I sent 599 and received 599. It was a super-minimal exchange, because I fumbled a lot.

I had to read a bit about how to correct errors, and I soon stumbled into AF3Z on 7036kHz, and I saw a funny series of attempted corrections: “a littr eee a littr eee a bit”

Later, I Got a second contact, KV4UD.