Learning Morse Code for CW

Can I learn enough Morse Code to work a SOTA activation on CW?

Why learn CW?

As England is ending its third lockdown related to COVID, I'd been looking for things to learn to fill the time. So I took my amateur radio exams at Foundation Level and started this blog. So having done that, what next? The obvious thing to do was to start studying for Intermediate Level but I couldn't find a course that started until June and I was impatient to learn something else so I decided to see if I could learn Morse Code.

Self taught or course?

There are lots of resources on the Internet to teach you CW. But, as I've found with many things, self-study only gets you so far. What I need, and I accept it is different for different people, is a community to learn with and to help motivate each other. So I decided I needed to find a like minded group who wanted to learn CW as well.

OARC Morse Group

Luckily enough, I'd joined OARC - Online Amateur Radio Community and one of the channels on their Discord server is dedicated to Morse. Even more luckily, the morse group was just starting so there was a great opportunity to get involved.

Syllabus and approach

The chosen syllabus was CW Ops / CW Academy, and we specifically followed these sessions and assignments as the core material. Our approach was to commit to 30 minutes practice per day and to meet up twice per week to consolidate our learning with a one hour session / discussion.

We are also working at 20WPM as the copy and keying speed so that we have to learn the sounds and not the dits and dahs. If you want some reasons why, then this video might explain why. I've set up my kit to work at 20WPM but I've opened up the Farnsworth speed (the gap between words) to 15 on the CW Ops trainer. I've tried to replicate this on my keyers to as far as I can.

In practice

30 minutes per day doesn't seem like much, but I found it hard to get a rhythm in place where I could do enough short sessions to make up to 30 minutes. Stamina is a real issue with head copying in the first week or so, I could barely make 5 minutes. So I broke the 30 minutes down into short 5 minute sessions. I try and do 4 copy sessions and key for 2 sessions. It seems to be working so far...

The twice weekly sessions are there to motivate us to do the practice in between sessions, give us head copy practice with someone keying for real, and offer us keying practice. As well as that, there is a lot of chat about keys, keyers, technique and general chit-chat. It's a good group and I can recommend finding a small group so you can have some focus and other to encourage and challenge you as you learn.

Kit

Of course, all new pursuits need new shiny kit. For CW, you need a key and a keyer.

Keys

There are two real choices, straight keys and paddles. I'm not going to debate the pros and cons of each, you can find plenty of web pages and YouTube videos on your own to help you make your choice. In the end, I chose to use paddles and found a great little keyer from cwmorse.us, I bought it via an ebay.co.uk listing.

Keyer

To create the sidetone for CW, you need a keyer. It plugs into your radio (or is part of your radio) and let's you connect your key and key the morse. I have a few options.

Xiegu G90 HF Transceiver

My HF radio is a Xiegu G90 which has a keyer built in, so I can simply plug in my key and away I go. There is an option to turn off the keyer such that it generates the sidetone but doesn't transmit. You select QSK Off and you can practice to your hearts content. The radio also has a decoder so it can, if you tune it right, decode received morse code. Which is sometimes helpful.

Morserino-32

I also bought a Morserino-32 which is a fantastic little Morse Practice tool. It can do many things, but at its heart, it is a keyer, a decoder and a practice aid. I won't describe it here, but I've added a little lipo battery and use it as a keying practice tool with my key that I can use anywhere. No excuses about not being able to practice for me.

Software

Of course, there is also a lot of Morse Code training software out there. I've mentioned the CW Ops trainer already, but I'm also using an app on my phone called Morse Machine which I think cost me 69p (99¢). This can be used to train on the go and focuses you on the sounds of the letters, and again I've set it to 20WPM so I hear the letter and not the dits and dahs.