Posted on 02/23/2007 6:45:07 PM PST by vintage patriot
wa8xyz wb8yxz ur rst 599
That's all you would have needed to pass 5 wpm.
If you 'had help' as you say, then it seems that whoever that was wasn't very helpful after all.
It sounds to me it's more than likely you just fought against the idea of being 'required' to learn Morse code because of what you 'perceived' to be an 'elitist' test or 'good ole boys' club.
The only 'good ole boys' in the Amateur band is the government.
Their game. Their rules.
'Em boys don't even acknowledge 05H.
I need some Shultheis Bier to cry in...
I think that's about what we were. It was funny, but 5 wpm sounded like a TTY signal when we first started out. LOL
All were/are affectionately known as Hogs.
Really. It started with the relaxing of the cw requirement,etc.
Now, between 7.1 and 7.15 is a ghost town (except for BC stations), so to speak.
The only active areas of cw on 40 are between 7.0 and 7.1 (cw).
In 27 years of being a ham, it's sad to see cw disappear altogether.
Such as life.
Denver Ditdat used to have one. Is he still around?
A close relative once described to me what it was like to go to the telegraph office when he was a kid (1920's). He said that the man working there would wait on customers and at the same time would be listening to the telegraph to identify those telegrams he needed to copy down for local distribution.
Ok, AX...what'd he say in post #13?
A number of posters have provided good info. I would just add that you don't want to learn CW from a textbook. It is an aural activity which is learned by hearing it, just as a child learns her language by hearing. You do not want to be learning from dots and dashes on a page.
Some of the instruction programs help with memorization by associating the code sounds with words. This type of approach may get you as far as you are interested in going, and may be more entertaining for the kids. However, it tends to be an impediment to increasing code speed later on. There is a code course put together by Chuck Adams (K7QO) which teaches by rote memorization. Its pretty dry at first which might not hold the kids interest as well, but once past learning the basics, demonstrates cw operating practices by example.
Have fun!
Bravo Uniform Mike Papa. BUMP.
Thank you very much. From your replies we've gained some terrific insight into morse code and resources to help us learn it.
Thank you...I have an enquiring mind.
:-)
Your welcome....Probably the most important thing once the decision is made is approach it like learning a language, which means at the very least a little practice every day. A good carrot is to start listening to Morse you hear on the ham bands, whey you start to begin 'copying' that may push you on. You don't have to go on to send Morse over the air either. There are people in our club that just copy CW when we practice, for the practice.
"Thank you very much. From your replies we've gained some terrific insight into morse code and resources to help us learn it."
Sure do...There is an increase in activity again on the novice portions with CW due to a new club called the Straight Key Century Club (SKCC). There's up to 3K members now, and they are working at preserving CW, and helping people get started with it. Not difficult to start a QSO anywhere with CW really.
A freepers net would be great.
But, we'll post something once in awhile about Ham Radio for when we get bored with politics. HiHi
"Times change, don't they? I remember when the novice portion of 40 was very crowded. Not any more. I am glad that there are still plenty of folks to talk to (7.0 - 7.1).
We should start a Freepers net or just have a big ragchew session about some of the articles on Free Republic... just a thought."
I knew the great-grandchildren of Morse. They were rich druggies that lived on Grosse Ile, in an exclusive suburb of Detroit. I doubt they've amounted to much. And I really doubt they ever understood their family's legacy. And that is a shame.
OHHHH...I feel better now. I was wondering what an analyst needed to know about dits besides how Hogs need beer...
actually, there were a lot of us who did quite well without volumes of beer when I was hacking dits.
The point I was making about it was you don't need to be perfect with it.
As a matter of fact you only need 5 consecutive words to pass, out of a test that generally is around 50 or more words.
When I took my test, I struggled like crazy because I thought 'there's no way I'm going to pass this', because I was trying to catch every dot and dash.
Much to my surprise out of the 50 or so words I got 5 right and passed. I even missed all the 'punctuation' in the test and barely got any numbers right.
The only thing that may have helped me was trying to listen to the 'patterns' of the letters, instead of trying to listen to each dash and dot.
I'm not proficient in Morse, and at the rate I'm going, probably never will be.
If you have hearing problems then you may have a hard time hearing the dot's and dash's and may not be able to pass the test.
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