Phil,

Extremely interesting comments, especially since my first ham radio love 
these days seems to be CW. For now, I'll just make 2 comments of my own. I 
use the Elecraft K3 here and, one of its best features is the ability to 
narrow the receiver down to 50 hz with no ringing. This is extremely useful 
for cutting out close-in stations but it is not without its side effects. At 
that bandwidth, the receiver is actually narrower than the cw signal itself 
and the affect is a softening of the keying since you're not hearing the 
whole signal. My objective as a rag chewer is always to filter out as much 
noise as I possibly can so that I hear nothing but the CW tone. But, as I 
mentioned, go too narrow and you'll lose the actual sound of the keying. So 
I usually compromise at 200 hz. In most cases, especially with the bands not 
as crowded as they used to be, you get a good clean signal to listen to. 
However, I certainly understand why you like to have it wider. Different 
strokes, I guess. Also, Bob's point about headphones vs. speakers is well 
taken. I've seen way too many code tests, back when we used to give them, 
administered in rooms with live acoustics. Of course, that makes it much 
harder to copy but I think most VE's are oblivious to the effect room 
acoustics can have on copy. 73. Lou  WA3MIX
Lou Kolb
Voice-over Artist:
Radio/TV Ads, Video narrations
Messages On-hold:
www.loukolb.com
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 16, 2014 12:56 AM
Subject: General CW tips and Experiences With Morse Runner And Pile Ups


> I've been using Morse Runner, a software CW practice program for 
> contesting
> skills, for so long, I can't remember when I first downloaded a copy.  I
> really have improved a lot just by using the program.  It uses a sound 
> card
> to generate, for those unfamiliar with the program, basic contest 
> operations
> including fading, line noise, Artic flutter, or sometimes called polar
> flutter or just echo,
> pile ups from a couple of signals to bunches of people calling you all at
> once, and all types of commonly experienced problems working a contest. 
> In
> this case, all the settings can be turned off and on and you can also tune
> up and down the band using the arrow keys.  The filter
> bandwidth I think can be set from 100 Hz to 600 but I'd have to check. 
> You
> can set it for single stations to call you one at a time, or as I said, 
> pile
> ups.  You can set the CW speed and also work full break in, known as QSK, 
> or
> semi Break In which makes you drop in and out as you begin transmitting 
> and
> stopping for listening mode.  There are many other features but the best 
> one
> is that it is free.  A Colorado ham friend turned me on to it back just
> about the time I went to windows from DOS.  I did so kicking and 
> screaming,
> going to windows that is, just like I did when incentive licensing forced 
> me
> to study for my advanced license and then for my extra so I could get all 
> my
> CW bands back, haha.  I said once before, I'm still mad about incentive
> licensing but I never would have gotten the advanced, or extra, without it
> forcing me to do so.
> Anyhow, without detailing all the features, let me explain what Morse 
> Runner
> can do for you and also share a few general tips about CW, contesting, and
> working pile ups for what it is worth.
>
> Let me say that although my top speed is about 50 WPM these days, and back
> in the early 1980s I got up to 70 WPM, my basic rag chew speed has always
> been about 28 to 35.  I've spent hundreds of hours at 50, 60, and 70 words
> per minute but after awhile, I got tired of pushing and just let my speed
> drop back to a more comfortable level.  20 WPM is fine but I have no 
> problem
> working slower than even 5 WPM.  In short, I like CW at about any speed.
> With this in mind, I started the Morse Runner program at 20 WPM when I 
> first
> started it up because all the function keys and command keys were 
> unfamiliar
> to me, plus, all those signals coming out of my speakers sound so freaking
> real, it was hard to believe I wasn't really on the air.  Anyhow, 20 WPM
> worked just fine for a couple of three days and then I began jumping up by 
> 5
> WPM.  That's another feature of the program; you can only move up and down
> by steps of 5 WPM but that's ok.  In a real contest, I prefer 37 or 38 WPM
> regardless but I still believe what the old timers taught 50 years ago 
> when
> I began studying for the novice exam: "Phil, don't ever go faster than the
> guy you are talking to.  If you call CQ at 25 and he answers you at 5, 
> then
> QRS. slow down, and go his speed until he tells you otherwise.  It's just
> habit for me now.  Contests are a little different but later in a contest,
> when contacts are harder to make, even slow, or weak signals, a contester
> will go slower just for those extra points they are pushing to get logged.
> Keep in mind, those stations going 40 and 50 words per minute in a contest
> are punching memory buttons with pre recorded strings.  If you sent 50 
> WPM,
> they very likely won't copy you so send at 20 WPM or whatever you want. 
> The
> big contest stations have more than one person at the rig and normally 
> more
> than one transmitter on the same band using different directional 
> antennas.
>
> Before I continue, I've run big pile ups, other than in contests, 
> especially
> on 40 meters when I had a beam at 70 feet, and especially when I had the
> call of AF0H which is a horrible CW call.  Anyway, I ran pile ups all the
> time to Japan because they love collecting new prefixes so Morse Runner
> shouldn't have spooked me so much but as I said, I had just started using
> windows so I didn't know half of what I was doing and still don't.  I'll 
> be
> dad blamed if my computer dies to buy another.  I think I'll just use my
> iPhone instead, haha.  Just kidding.  Plus, I've run pile ups during CW
> contests, too, and dad gum if it isn't hard work.
>
> I preset Morse Runner to 600 Hz bandwidth because I grew up using an old
> BC348 military receiver that only had a 1 KHz CW crystal filter.  Shoot,
> that's not much less than the band pass of the better transceivers on CW
> when the filters are wide open.  With my Icom 7000 today, using the lowest
> filter, which I think is 250 Hz, and then using the additional crystal
> filtering, I can literally squeeze a signal, and I've tested this many 
> times
> to be sure, down to a band width of just 19 Hertz.  I rarely drop down to
> 250 Hz, on the other hand, unless it is a contest or the QRN thunderstorm
> static is bad.  I'm used to listening through a wide filter and I like to 
> be
> able to hear the whole pile up so my brain can automatically pick out 
> which
> signal to focus on.  That means I pick out a certain signal and my brain
> helps to filter out all the others, for the most part, so the weakest
> signal, at 300 Hz, below the body of the pile up, may be the one I answer.
> Then, too, I may focus on the highest pitch signal instead of the middle 
> of
> the pile and work him.  In a pile up of any size, 99 percent of the time,
> you are going to automatically focus on the absolute strongest signal you
> can copy but that isn't necessarily the way to work a pile up.  This is 
> why,
> however, the contest stations have such big antennas and big amplifiers 
> and
> the real dedicated contesters don't always run just 1500 watts output
> either.  This is especially true in Europe, the United States, and Russia.
> The Russians, believe it or not, to this day, run some amazing power.  You
> want to know where all the old big power amplifier tubes are today?  Talk 
> to
> a Russian that's a club member over there and you will find out where 
> those
> big tubes are.  Anyhow, we all generally are going to focus on the 
> strongest
> signal in most pile ups, unless, that is, he is going too fast for us to
> copy.  I personally let my mind do the choosing of whom to focus on and 
> then
> zero mentally on that one signal.  From that point on, I often, even in
> Morse Runner, can only pick out signals around the edges, even if they are
> weaker than the body of the pile up, and I'll get part of their prefix, or
> part of their suffix, and reply with my exchange to that much of the call.
> The idea, of course, is to get the entire call so you don't spend time
> trying to reply more than the first time but even in a contest, things are
> not always as they seem.  A lot of CW operating is copying by rhythm and
> that has nothing to do with
> contesting as much as it does when practicing to increase your rate of 
> copy.
> For example, I literally put K0NX, my current call, at the top of my list 
> of
> 25 calls I would take when applying for the vanity call sign back in 1996.
> Why, it has a
> short rhythm with the NX.  I wanted a lot of calls that were already 
> taken.
> For example XX, CQ, CW VV, and I could go on for a whole page listing
> calls easy to copy.  This time, though, I picked out a call that sounded
> rhythmic, could be remembered so you won't duplicate in a contest as 
> easily,
> and that rolled with the flow, sort of speak.  Building speed works by
> listening to slightly higher speeds than you can copy, then dropping back
> and working someone at the speed where you can copy every single letter 
> for
> the whole contact, this increases confidence, and then calling the next 
> guy
> who is sending a little faster than you can get fully.  Another old timer
> rule.  Never be afraid to ask a person to slow down, that is, to QRS, but
> this normally is negated in a contest operation.  Back
> to the rhythm of the code.  letter such as ING, ER ED, EST, UA, VE, TNX,
> RST, and dozens of others have a almost musical, or rhythmic, sound to 
> them.
> Guys at 40, 50, and faster, aren't copying letter for letter but mostly 
> word
> by word.  In other words, they copy hearing the background rhythms of the
> words and their brain fills in the rest.   Even back in the day of copying
> with a mill, that's the old timers word for typewriter, or in my case, a
> Braillewriter, too, I used, we copied two, three, and more words behind 
> what
> was being sent.  Why?  Because we were listening for rhythms.  Again, OU,
> ON, OX, OR, VK, ZL, and the like have rhythm.  So when it comes to
> contesting, your mind listens for those sounds and especially the DX
> prefixes
> so you can pick out a call in a split second and let your mind crank down
> hard on that single note when there might be a dozen tones coming through
> the headphones at you.  Speaking of CW rhythm, let me prove there is 
> really
> such a thing as almost a musical rhythm to CW.  Get out your old hand key,
> or pull your old bug over to where you operate, or center your electronic
> keyer where it feels right, or even set your CW keyboard, or software
> generated CW program, on your lap, or in bed, or wherever you practice or
> operate on the air, and try sending the next few words or lines of text.
>
> Test
> Bees Nest
> Bens best bet
>
> An old ship to ship one used to be:
>
> Bens best wire.
>
> My favorite is the following.  It will take you a lot of slow practice to
> even copy the next one right; trust me.  The guy who taught me the below
> line of CW text, was on 15 meters one afternoon and we were sending about 
> 35
> WPM when he sent it to me.  I missed it flat out.  He repeated and I
> missed it.  He slowed down to about 20 WPM and I got a couple of words.
> Finally, I got him to slow down to at least 10 WPM before I copied it 
> right.
> Just trying to send it correctly is very difficult at first and I'm even
> talking about typing it on a keyboard is hard.  Here it is but don't send
> the apostrophe in one of the words.  I just added it to make the 
> synthesizer
> say the word correctly.  So leave all punctuation out.
>
> Tennessees sissies are sissier sissies than Mississippi's sissies.
>
> Ok, how did you do?  The line alone proves you have to learn the rhythm of
> the code if you are ever going to get passed letter by letter copying.  My
> favorite, though, is Bens best bet but another goody is bees nest.  .  The
> whole sentence can be
> mentally learned as if it were one letter or at least one word just by
> rhythm alone.
>
> The nice thing about CW pile ups is that, as I have already mentioned, the
> strongest signal isn't necessarily the one you need to answer.  My mind,
> unless the strongest signal is dead center within my passband, 
> automatically
> searches around the edges of the pile up.  I also do not wait to focus on 
> a
> call being sent in its entirety.  If, in the middle of the can of worms, 
> my
> mind's snags only two letters, or a number and a letter, or a prefix, I
> reply to that and let the pile up drain away from that one signal.  Even 
> if
> more than one signal thinks I've called him, you've at least scaled back 
> the
> overall
> size of the pile up and only have one or two or three signals calling you
> and you can
> focus on whichever call catches your attention.  Most people start out at 
> a
> slower speed regardless if they are calling someone or answering in a pile
> up and then build on that speed as thing develop.  For example, with Morse
> Runner, I now have worked my way up to starting at 40 WPM and I work at
> least 20 stations, normally it is about 30 to 33 stations, and then I page
> up and the speeds jumps to 45 WPM.  I miss more, and the dynamics of the
> software develops a slightly altered pile up.  I'm referring to the shape
> the pile up makes.  Stations answering my CQ set at 45 changes with a 
> wider
> range of fast, and slow, stations calling me including some right at 45 or
> even 50 WPM.  Sometimes the fast stations are easier to copy than the slow
> stations and contacts are quick made as a result.  Other times, it is a 
> slow
> station, weaker than the main body of the pile up, so I pick him off.
> Another tip, which may be obvious, is two, if possible, and based upon the
> form the pile up has taken, copy at least one call whom you will answer
> first, then copy a couple of letters from another station in the pile up,
> and then when you are finished with the first, you can query the part of 
> the
> second call and make a faster double exchange; it hitting a double in
> baseball sort of speak, haha.  This becomes easier than you might think 
> and
> often you can snag two or three double letters in the pile up and work 
> them
> one right after another before sending QRZ or T U for Thank You indicating
> the contact is confirmed.
>
> I have, over the years, learned the nature of the Morse Runner software,
> that is, I know about how many contacts I can make before I have to slide 
> my
> receiver down with the arrow keys one or two clicks for 100 to 200 Hz.  I
> almost am aware of other characteristics of the software so, at best, it 
> is
> just a
> tool and not like the real thing all the way around.  The best way is to
> simply tune the band during a contest, pick out the loudest signals first,
> work them, and keep moving up the band.  Then start over from the bottom 
> and
> start tuning the knob slower so you don't miss the weaker signals.  Snag 
> as
> many of them as you can as you move up the band.  Don't spend an hour 
> trying
> to work some guy who can't hear you through the pile up.  Move along and
> then you can work him when you run across him later when the pile up has
> diminished.  If you have
> a big antenna with big power, you can shoulder your way into the louder
> signals and run a pile up but you need a good basic working knowledge of
> propagation for any given band and hunting and driving a pile up is
> concerned.  If you are running lower power and a smaller antenna, climb
> higher into the band, like above 7075 on 40 meters or above 28.100 on 10
> meters.  This way you can get away from the can of worms at the bottom of
> each band.  In the last CW contest on 10 meters, I heard guys up above
> 28.150 and nearly to 28.200 working Europeans.  Few of us are going to be
> working pile ups but the Morse Runner contest program will improve your CW
> skills regardless if you ever work a contest or not.  The important thing 
> to
> remember is to have fun.  If it isn't fun; try moon bounce or some other
> phase of the hobby.
>
> Phil.
> K0NX