Code rehab forever - Make CW a 2nd language
GOTA – “Get on the Air to get good,” instead of “get good to get on the air.”. It makes a huge difference. With over 2700 POTA QSOs, I’ve gotten somewhat good. Need more, and different types to get better. NOW OPEN for Code Buddies.
Your hobby will teach you the importance
of patience and perseverance.
The last one! The Villages, FL to KL7AC in North Pole, AK, about 3712 miles (1,030 miles/watt)
Using my tiny QMX transceiver – 3.6 watts – 10M CW – TW2010 antenna
THANKS Andre! That brought me to 49 states + DC, all POTA contacts, all CW, all QRP.
My first encounter with CW1 was learning it for the Novice Ham License test 47 years ago, in 1977. Morse code learning in those days began with a chart of the alphabet and the dots and dashes associated with each character. The mental challenge was translating a sequence of dots and dashes into a letter. Learn this for the alphabet, numbers, a few punctuation marks, and then practice doing it quickly enough to meet a speed goal. Practice was via either 33 RPM vinyl records, or audio cassette tapes. The code speed required for the Novice test was 5 words per minute, or about 30 characters per minute, 1 character every 2 seconds. I wandered away from Ham radio for a few years and came back to study for the General class license in 1988. The code speed for that license required 13 words per minute proficiency, about 1 character every ¾ of a second. I used morse code on the air for a couple of years in spare time, but then other parts of life became more important.
Thirty-some years later, I’m back to ham radio, having a great time, but still wrestling with a monster that’s left over from the wrong way of learning Morse code.
It’s the wrong way because a decode engine gets implanted in the brain. Once that engine is implanted, it always takes over with this sequence: 1) hear a Morse code sound 2) the decode engine barges in and 3) you wait for a character to pop out. That’s OK at slow speeds, but one tries to improve code speed, the decode engine is always barging into the sequence, taking up precious time, becoming a barrier to progressing, creating what some refer to as plateaus. Many of us reach a plateau at 15-18 words per minute (wpm). Almost always it is those of us who learned the old way and have a decode engine still taking control. That decode engine has become what Glenn Norman, W4YES, (founder of CW Innovations) calls the Decode Monster.
The modern method of learning Morse code focuses on the code as a sound based language. Don’t ever refer to a chart of dots and dashes. Don’t ever refer to any graphic form. Morse code is an audible language, not a written language. Pay attention ONLY to sound. Don’t aim for low speed recognition that you can grow. Start character recognition fast. Learn to recognize characters by hearing them at a high speed (typically 27-37 wpm, or higher, character speed). Don’t get freaked out by that speed. It isn’t an expectation of understanding the code at that speed, but hearing individual characters at that high speed. The speed has to be fast enough to discourage counting dots and dashes. Learn the sound, not the number and sequence of parts, but the sound, the sound, a single unit of sound, of a character. The technique is known as Instant Character Recognition. When one learns this way recognition eventually becomes instant, no decode time, no need for the Decode Monster to ever intrude. The sound didah becomes instantly recognized as an “a” and diddydahdahdiddy becomes instantly recognized as a question mark. People learning Morse code with this method usually progress smoothly towards the ability to stack characters into words, words into phrases, into sentences and into conversations.
Instant character recognition is absolutely essential. Recognition must be instant for progressing to fluency. One can recognize short words fairly easily, but once words become 5, 6, or more characters, if character recognition isn’t instant, decode processing time causes you to fall behind. Getting to Instant means slaying the decode monster. There’s no time for the decode monster to be in the way as streams of characters become longer or faster.
I’m not there yet. Character recognition still isn’t instant. The decode monster keeps demanding its share of my recognition time. One practice technique that holds promise is listening to 3-character groups with the MorseCodeWorld trainer. I started that practice with character speed at 28 wpm, but was still counting dots and dashes. At 36 wpm, the sounds are almost “single sound units” and after listening for a good while, 10-15 minutes, the sound units start becoming characters. I think I’m gradually wearing down the decode monster as I keep increasing character speed. By the way, practicing with 3-character groups is useful as a way of reducing the desire to also make a recognizable word out of the stream; less mental pressure. However, if I drop back to slower character speeds, the monster still wants to barge in. THAT is my current challenge. Does anyone know a better way to slay the monster?
“Jump the bump” is another phrase that comes from Glenn W4YES. The concept is to practice much faster that what is easily recognized, past that bump, and then fall back to a comfortable speed for real recognition. On a positive note, I have experienced real progress when attempting word recognition. Some time ago, listening to lists of short words at 10 wpm resulted in about 80% success. Today, I can get to that 80% level at 18 wpm. That’s progress.
Meanwhile: Die, monster, DIE!
Update: 12/14/24 – changed all earlier references of “Translation Demon” to “Decode Monster” after finding a video where Glenn mentioned it once again.
Recent practice with 36 WPM character speed and 20 WPM Farnsworth is letting many more characters pop-up before the decode monster gets in the way.
The Casa Easton Antenna Test Range has been busy the past few days. About 2 weeks ago, I discovered KJ6ER, Greg Mihran’s, PERformer (Portable, Elevated, Resonant) antenna. Greg describes the antenna in spectacular detail in a frequently updated document. He has extensively modeled the antenna for 40M through 6M. I built mine for 20M through 10M, especially for use with my QMX transceiver.
Bottom line: This one’s a KEEPER! Advice: Greg has a DONATE button as part of his fine article. I suggest using it to recognize his good work.
Several hams, WB3GCK, Craig La Barge, and WK4DS, David Saylors, in particular, talk about using elevated antennas atop poles mounted on the back of their trucks. They use them with tuned raised radials and they have great results at QRP power levels.
I’ve tried elevated antennas and raised radials on my own antenna test range and haven’t yet matched their results. However, I’ve not had good measurements for the various components. Guesswork resulted in functioning antennas, but not in the kind of results Craig and David report.
The KJ6ER description brought it all home for me. KJ6ER, Greg, describes his modelling, includes several tables showing measurements, and offers construction ideas. All are great starting points.
I modified a stand I had previously used for elevated antenna testing, making it the height Greg suggested, 52 inches. A quick trial with a 17′ whip adjusted to a 15m length and 2 raised radials at Greg’s suggested lengths enabled the very first QSO, an easy 5w QSO, from Central Florida to KR7Q, Clifford, in the mountains of western Montana. BAM! I was hooked.
Next, improve the components. My old 17′ whip was rickety, showing dancing SWR indications as the wind blows and sometimes having a section or two spontaneously collapse. Replacing it with a new Chameleon SS17 fixed that problem. Then, I constructed a pair of linked radials for 10m, 12m, 15m, 17m, and 20m similar to those Greg describes. (I used his exact lengths.) Lastly, I rebuilt the simple little Common Mode Choke that you see dangling between the whip and the feedline. It keeps stray RF off the feedline and offers consistent SWR that doesn’t involve the feedline acting as a random radial.
My antenna test range is my backyard. I setup the antenna as you see it with a couple of plastic electric fence sticks as end points for the radials. A short segment, made of paracord, can be moved from segment to segment in the linked radials to select bands. Through testing, I found vertical element lengths that were optimum for each band in this configuration. I discovered that the best way to adjust it is to set the vertical element a bit longer than the lengths in the table, and then reach up and fiddle with the 2nd section of the whip, which is just within my reach. So far, I’ve used the radials 90 degrees to each other, which Greg’s models show a modest bit of directionality. For these tests, and that Montana QSO, they were pointed WNW.
I measured with a NanoVNA, and then with WSPR. Antenna lengths were tuned for lowest SWR in the CW portions of the bands, usually the QRP hailing frequency. I frequently use WSPR to discover an antenna’s potential, and treat WSPR results as a “possibility,” never a guarantee. Each of these WSPR runs were mid to late afternoon in the US Eastern timezone, with each run for 6 minutes. Solar Ham showed this as a typical propagation day, no solar storms.
These are the lowest SWR results I’ve seen in any of my testing.
| Band | Radial lth | Radiator lth | SWR | Impedance |
| 10m | 80″ | 114″ | 1.031:1 | 50.7Ω |
| 12m | 96″ | 124.5″ | 1.045:1 | 51.1Ω |
| 15m | 120″ | 143.5″ | 1.027:1 | 48.7Ω |
| 17m | 149″ | 163″ | 1.049:1 | 49.7Ω |
| 20m | 198″ | 207.25″ | 1.041:1 | 48.1Ω |
Long ago, I crawled around burying 18 radials in the grass. I use that field with either a Wolf River Coils antenna or with Hamsticks, all sitting atop a low tripod. They’ve produced ~almost~ continental coverage, and always enough capability to reach hundreds upon hundreds of mid-continental POTA activators. SWR with those configurations run between 1.3:1 and 1:7:1, never lower.
My vertical dipole, A DX Engineering Transworld 2010 (TW2010) has also offered reliable mid-continental results, and maybe longer reach than the verticals atop the radial field. It’s advantage is quick setup, even tough it does need more than the usual amount of coax for impedance balance … and SWR in the 1.2:1 to 1.4:1 range. The difference is so slight (in actual listening) as to not be noticeable. Knowing what I know of it now, I shouldn’t have spent that much on it.
DIY-built EFHW and EFRW inverted Vees have almost always performed better than the verticals over the radial field. I’m continually playing with variations and am usually pleased with how well they work, especially the ease of changing bands.
Which brings me to the PERformer. KJ6ER, Greg, shows his models demonstrating efficiency factors about 30% better than most of my other antennas, and some directional front-to-back gain. So far, I’ve had delightfully solid results and at least one contact well beyond the normal range of my other antennas, possibly confirming the directional gain. A too-short session yesterday brought a quick string of POTA QSOs at higher than usual signal reports. I’m not quite gushing yet, but I have thanked Greg and remind you to push his DONATE button when you see the same results I have.
Time will tell. (Hey Alaska, are you hearin’ me?)
KB9VBR, Michael Martens excellently describes details of his build and his results below. Pay particular attention to the last / summary section.
Nuff said. Because you can’t really say anything on FT8.
jason VE5REV responds: Like callsigns & signal reports? Can we exchange that information with FT8? Can we see propagation patterns with minimal power?? Can we use it when other modes won’t work due to bad band conditions???