The two most marvelous tools for CW improvement I have found, which carried
me through the extra ticket and finally broke my 18 wpm code barrier, are
the computer program Morse Tutor Advanced and the MFJ 493 Super Memory Keyer
with Keyboard interface.
Morse Tutor Advanced allows input via ASCII text files. I wrote several C
programs for my IBM at home (source code available on request) which create
two types of text files. One is random length cypher groups using any
alphabet with any frequency distribution for individual characters. The
second uses a list of English words and phrases as input and generates
messages consisting of words and phrases at random.
The MFJ keyer has 32 Kbytes of storage. You can load text files up to 4
Kbytes into each of eight message memories and play them back at the touch
of a button. I keep it next to the bed with special files loaded that have
short English words, common words, Ham abbreviations etc. and I copy one or
two in the dark, in my head, while getting ready to go to sleep. The keyer
has an audio out so it can be loaded up and used to record practice tapes.
It has a QSO simulator that I have yet to get to work correctly.
The MFJ has a serial port on it. To practice sending with the paddles, you
can hook it to a terminal program and get the entire grizzly truth on how
absolutely horrid the mess you are producing actually is. The keyer inserts
a single space when it judges that one wordspace time has gone by so it is
a strict taskmaster. Stuggling to get the characters appearing on the screen
to look like typing is a real challenge.
This weekend I discovered another fabulous feature of the MFJ keyer. It
can be loaded up with a nice CQ message and send it over and over again
at the push of a button while you are trying to find anyone on the QRP
calling frequencies. Saves huge amounts of wear and tear on the wrist
and encourages persistance.
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