Hi Phil,

in the trainer mode you can use arbitrary text files as callsign databases, one call per line.

As a source for such files, you might use the super check partial database (http://www.supercheckpartial.com/MASTER.SCP) and cut out all the non-US or VE calls quite quickly (e. g. in Notepad).

Also CW Freak by JI0VWL offers a similar option: http://www.ji0vwl.com/cw_freak_net_e.html

73
Fabian, DJ1YFK
Enjoying Rufz since 1997

You can generate and download any number of MP3 practice files online at: http://lcwo.net/download
Also the text to CW converter may be of iterest to generate customized files: http://lcwo.net/text2cw

73
Fabian

To check whether your signal is getting out or not, the Reverse Beacon Network is a great tool. It's an aggregation of CW Skimmer spots from dozens of wideband CW decoders all around the world. Most every CQ call will be received by at least one Skimmer and then listed on the RBN website; the same data is also available as a telnet feed like a classical DX Cluster.

You can filter this data by a call, e. g. with yours: http://www.reversebeacon.net/dxsd1/dxsd1.php?f=0&c=kd8tzc&t=dx

73
Fabian

RAID arrays are great, but another thing to consider is accidental deletion or alteration of files (by user mistake or buggy software). In such a case an additional "offline" backup can be a life saver.

It may sound too good to be true, but on a typical Windows computer you have everything to do automated backups to an external harddrive: XCOPY and Scheduled Tasks.

Xcopy documentation and examples: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289483
Scheduled Tasks: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/schedule-a-task

xcopy can be configured to copy files from a source to a destination only if they changed or are newer, and this can be put into a batch file which is then periodically called by a scheduled task. Alternatively, you can also just manually start this file whenever you like.
By limiting the copying to new or updated files, the backup in most cases take a lot less time than just blindly copying everything each time you're starting the backup process.

Depending on which version of Windows you are using, the specifics differ a little bit, but you'll probably find quite a lot of documentation for each version online. Here's an example for WinXP: http://www.ekho.com/Training_Videos/XCOPY_NOTES.pdf

I have been using xcopy on Windows for years and it's a unsophisticated but reliable tool for simple cases which include no need for revisioning or transfer over networks etc.

Free:
- N1MM: http://n1mm.hamdocs.com/tiki-index.php
- TR4W: http://www.tr4w.com/

Payware:
- WinTest: http://www.win-test.com/

The latter is my personal preference, but the former two surely are also excellent choices, with different strong and weak points.

73
Fabian

According to the rules: http://concours.ref-union.org/reglements/actuels/reg_cdfhf_dx.pdf

French stations get more points if they work each other than for working non-F-stations but every QSO counts.

73
Fabian

There's iDitDahText by KB1OOO:

http://iditdahtext.com/iDitDahText.html

73
Fabian

There's a bit of JavaScript code embedded on that site that most certainly does not belong there.

It contains an array of scrambled JavaScript code which is then translated into some more JavaScript which, when executed, embeds an iframe into the site. This iframe, most likely on another hacked website, probably contained something malicious, but it doesn't seem to exist anymore (Error 404). Probably the owner of that other website (with an Italian domain name, probably completely unrelated to WA2ISE) has noticed the breach and cleaned up his server.


Bottom line: There's still some JavaScript on that website which doesn't belong there. but it isn't harmful. However the owner of the website should remove it, try to find out how it got there, and at the very least change his access password etc. to make further breakins of this kind less likely to happen.

To protect oneself from problems by such malicious code from random websites, I highly recommend to switch off JavaScript in the browser off by default. For Firefox there's a great plugin called NoScript (http://www.noscript.net/) which allows very fine grained script settings to be made for each website. There are similar things for other browsers too.

73
Fabian, DJ1YFK

If the other station tells you about his rig, antenna and power, he shouldn't be unhappy if you do the same. Yet, some people like to elaborate a little more about it than what I'd like to hear. I typically just send something like "kw es 3el [at 100 ft]". It doesn't really matter whether I am running a FTdx9000 or a FT450; of course in case of some very special transceiver it may be of interest, but typically it isn't.

Just be brief (as one should always be in CW) and reduce redundancy, and everyone should be happy.

gd dx!

Fabian

M3U is an open format for MP3 playlists, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3U

In those M3U files on http://cw.dimebank.com:8080/ there's just one line in each, pointing to the URL of the actual stream. E.g. http://cw.dimebank.com:8080/CNNfast.m3u contains in plain ASCII: http://cw.dimebank.com:8080/CNNfast

All media players that support streaming media should support it in principle. Unfortunately those streams are using a 8kHz sample rate which many MP3 decoders choke on. With a default mplayer on Ubuntu I get very garbled audio, whereas VLC appears to handle it just fine.

73,
Fabian DJ1YFK
(who, by the way, uses rss2email & cwbiff for news headlines in CW)

About two years ago I coded a little Morse Decoder which uses the mouse as the input device in JavaScript, e.g. to be used in a browser.
Getting the mouse click events with a millisecond resolution works surprisingly well with the Firefox browser. What I didn't manage to get running well back then was a decent sidetone.

A few weeks ago I played with the code again and found that Firefox's audio capabilities have dramatically improved in the meantime, and it's indeed possible to generate a sidetone without too much delay by very simple means. It's still a bit clicky because I switch it on and off without any rise- or fall-times, but at least it's not delayed much (on a halfway modern/fast computer).

The result can be seen here (as mentioned, it will probably work with Firefox only at this moment, possibly also with Opera):
http://lcwo.net/transmit

I have some ideas how to improve the sound, and also I am planning to implement a little Morse Chatroom with it on LCWO.net eventually.

73
Fabian DJ1YFK

I have a copy of SM7CPY's thesis in which he mostly describes research about the human ear's/brain's ability to copy Morse code, but also with some CW decoders: PL232. TONO 7000E, Telereader CD 670, CWR 900 and PROCO CD 630. These are from the early 1990s or even earlier and therefore don't use very sophisticated technology; just a bandpass filter plus level detector.

For perfect copy at 16wpm (he didn't test 20wpm) and with wideband masking noise (100 .. 2500 Hz, tone frequency 800 Hz) the decoders require something between -4 and +3 dB of SNR.

In his studies, a human decoder required -7 dB of SNR under the same conditions.

The difference between his and your noise bandwidth  (2.3 kHz vs 3 kHz) would account for roughly 1 dB of difference in SNR; I am not exactly sure how big the influence of the speed difference is.

Regarding further tests with decoders I would be interested in any news, but my own research is going into the direction of the capability of humans to copy CW under low SNRs.

On my Morse Code training website (http://lcwo.net/) I will soon roll out a test everyone can take, in which the test subject has to copy a number of random groups with varying SNR; in the end I hope to be able to generate a SNR/CER plot for each individual person, but also get some insight into differences between individuals.

73
Fabian

http://lcwo.net/text2cw - Free and online, MP3 files can be downloaded or embedded into a website

For longer texts: http://fkurz.net/ham/ebook2cw.html

73
Fabian DJ1YFK

ebook2cw has a parameter for this (-W Extra Word spacing.).
See http://fkurz.net/ham/ebook2cw.html

73
Fabian DJ1YFK