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Author Topic: Letter spacing  (Read 338 times)

KH6AQ

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Letter spacing
« on: March 25, 2022, 11:49:45 AM »

I often work ops who tend to bunch their letters together without enough spacing -- it sounds like they want to send 25 wpm with their keyer set for 20 wpm -- and that makes for tiring copy. Sending a bit wide on the spacing is okay though. Inconsistent spacing with gaps in the middle of words makes head copy more difficult. I know I'm guilty of that one from time to time.
« Last Edit: March 25, 2022, 12:01:10 PM by KH6AQ »
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K6SDW

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Re: Letter spacing
« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2022, 12:46:39 PM »

I agree that word spacing can make a difference in copying code, especially QRQ sending. When I can, I try to listen to ARRL's code practice sessions (usually 40 meters) for perfect sending....of course, it's machine generated...

GL/73
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WA3SKN

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Re: Letter spacing
« Reply #2 on: March 25, 2022, 01:31:41 PM »

The rules of the road are both well defined and finite.
That doesn't mean people won't break them!

-Mike.
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W0CKI

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Re: Letter spacing
« Reply #3 on: March 25, 2022, 02:03:27 PM »

Proper spacing makes all the difference in the world to those on the receiving end. Even those sending at 25WPM with properly spaced letters are much easier to copy then those sending sloppily at slower speeds.
It's an art, so take time to learn CW correctly.
Gary W0CKI.
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W6MK

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Re: Letter spacing
« Reply #4 on: March 25, 2022, 05:20:35 PM »

Poor spacing between characters can easily make Morse Code impossible to copy.
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K3TN

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Re: Letter spacing
« Reply #5 on: March 26, 2022, 04:31:22 AM »

This is where the mind of an experienced CW op has a big advantage over most CW decoders. You pretty much know that if you here dit dah dah dah dit dit dah dit dit dit dit dit dah dit early in a QSO it is probably not "JU5N" - more likely it is WX HR....

Once those bad spacers leave the cookie cutter part of the QSO, different story!

73 John K3TN
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John K3TN

ZL1BBW

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Re: Letter spacing
« Reply #6 on: March 26, 2022, 02:19:13 PM »

Good hand sent morse should be just as good as machine generated morse, that is not an opinion its a fact, we were tested and trained using an inker to show just how long , or short the various elements were.

BUT, I do remember, all to vividly, one ship station that was so bad, we used to double up to receive messages from him on a bad day, and then the two of us would compare texts and endeavour to make the message out of them.

The one thing that we had to absolutely get 101% was the auto alarm signal sent by hand, 4 second dash 1 second space 12 of them in exactly 60 seconds,  I would imagine if you had to send it by hand in the heat of the moment it would just become an automatic response.

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ex MN Radio Officer, Portishead Radio GKA, BT Radio Amateur Morse Tester.  Licensed as G3YCP ZL1DAB, now taken over my father (sk) call as ZL1BBW.
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