After eight years I applied for a new call: PA8E. For some time I was in doubt about my old call. PA1JIM doesn’t key well in CW. It’s too long and I didn’t like the combination 1-J. A few weeks ago one of my HAM-buddies, Gerald PA9G changed his call from PE1PQW to PA9G. A while back I did played with the idea to change my call but with the call-change of Gerald this came back to life. But then the big question: what new call should I apply for?
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At least half an hour a day: CW training at lcwo.net. It pays off. This evening I’m a little less tired then other nights and I started my daily Morse code training. I did not had my regular dips in the first training session of two minutes. To my own surprise I hit a 82% score in the first run! I could not believe my eyes! First score in the 80’s! And it was not a one day fly, the next three were in the 80 percent!
Just as I was thinking I will never learn this, no matter how many CW training I do. Day in, day out of scores around 60 or maybe 70 percent correct. Still working to three scores of 90 percent in one practice session. When I reach that, I will switch over to the numbers. And when I got three hits of 90% or higher I will train letters and numbers combined. I’m still a long way from home. On my to-do list also are the pro-signs. But when we will reach that bridge we will cross it.
After today I got back my motivation to go on with this CW training!
After a second test resulting in a working display yesterday evening, my 2nd attempt to get a breadboard version of K3NG’s Arduino CW keyer up and running turns out to be a success!
This morning I soldered a female mini-jack and a speaker to the Arduino Nano and set the right pins in the Arduino IDE. After a upload/reboot the keyer came up and it works perfectly!
I really like this Arduino stuff. It is simple to figure out and the fact that it is open source (software as well as hardware) makes things easy and quick to work with. Hats off to the author of the keyer code: K3NG Radio Artisan.
I still have to try connect the keyer to a rig. The fact that you can use one paddle to key multiple rigs, I think is ideal. That way I never have to unplug my paddle from the TS-590 and plug it in the Elecraft K1 or the other way around. You can even connect as much as eight rigs! I don’t think a Arduino Nano has enough connections for it, but the software can do it.
Actually I think I will buy a Arduino Uno for this project so I have enough connections for all kind of options to activate. As controller I considering a rotary encoder. A separate power supply is needed too as you can see the display dimmed when the speaker makes sound.
And then the hardest part; find and build the whole thing in a nice case!
