Copyright: MorseCat Copyright ® 1996-98 DK5CI
Citation: MorseCat Copyright ® 1996-98 DK5CI


Contents

MorseCat	==> Overview

(Caution: Do not hammer down on your key like my cat on this picture does. See further down this document on the correct sending style and posture.)


Overview

About this program

Learning the code with MorseCat

Getting started

Character sets

Prosigns

Plain text

Farnsworth method

Check the text sent by the program

Speed

Sound

Sending with a manual key

Watch your Signs on virtual CRT


About this program

About this Program	Overview <==

This program is freeware. I have written it to encourage people to learn the code, to polish up lost knowledge or to improve their speed in order to crowd the CW sections of the amateur radio bands and to avoid CW becoming a dying mode. You may distribute it as long as you do this completely free without taking any money for it; the archive must be complete including both help files and, as I retain the copyright, each of the files must be unchanged. If you intend to include the package on CD ROM, you will need my permission which you will get after sending me a short description of your CD ROM via e-mail (dk5ci@newsfactory.net).

I am not reliable for any damage whatsoever caused by installing or using this program. Use it at your own risk.

The program was developed using Borland Delphi. To accomplish a timer resolution of 1 millisecond, I used the freeware component TFTimer, written by Richard Shotbolt.

I know that 16-bit programs are no longer up-to-date. But there are still many people who are using Windows 3.1, and as long as 32-bit-Windows will support 16-bit programs, there will be no reason to port this program to 32 bit, making the executable file much larger without changing any functionality at the cost of excluding the users of Windows 3.1.

In addition to this help file, you can use the bubble help feature. If 'Show bubble help' on the 'Preferences' page is activated, you get information about each active window element the mouse pointer is moved to.

Vy 73 de Gerald, DK5CI


Learning the code

Learning the Code with MorseCat	Overview <==

How to learn and to practice copying Morse code:

Getting started

Character sets

Prosigns

Plain text

Farnsworth method

Show sent characters

There are program options which are not needed by beginners who haven't learned all of the Morse characters yet. Beginners should use the Farnsworth method and should not change rhythm settings in order to get accustomed to the correct sound of Morse characters.


Getting Started

Learning the Code with MorseCat
GETTING STARTED	Learning the code <==

To learn and practice new characters, check 'Up to Lesson' or 'New Lesson' in group box 'Skill Level / set of characters' and select the lesson in the field to the right.

The new characters will be displayed in the buttons below. You can listen to each character by clicking the button with the mouse. The character will be repeated as long as the button is held down.

Begin practicing new characters with the mode set to 'Groups', and start the lesson by clicking the 'Start' button.

You can interrupt the lesson by pressing 'Pause'; 'Continue' will continue from where you stopped.

After the time which has been set in the lower left 'Duration' field has elapsed, the lesson will end, and the program will be reset to start mode.

Clicking 'Stop' will end the lesson and switch to start mode immediately.

You can change the operation mode only when the program is in start mode, mode switching is not possible when the program is merely paused.

Each lesson is preceded by the prosign CT (commence of traffic) and ends with AR. These prosigns are not printed.

'Up to Lesson' means that each one of the characters you have learned up to now is used; characters from the new lesson and characters from the past lessons are distributed equally.

'New: Lesson' means that the main score of the characters for the lesson is taken from the new characters.

Note that for several modes (Groups - letters only, synthetic callsigns and file), the skill level has to be set to 'All chars' because the program cannot filter out unknown characters in these modes. 'Letters only' sends consonants and vowels in change and is meant as an alternative to normal mixed groups for those who want to increase their ability of copying higher speeds by ear not only by using plain text, because these groups are pronouncable and can easier be memorized then random character groups.


Character sets

Learning the Code with MorseCat
CHARACTER SETS	Learning the code <==

In group mode, you can control the distribution of the characters in each group by selecting 'Set 1 only', 'Set 2 only', 'separate' or 'mixed'.

Each set contains the characters which you select on the 'Character Set' page. There, you find 5 list boxes for letters, regional characters, numbers, punctuation signs and traffic signs. On the lower part of the page, there are 2 groups of check boxes where you can select from which input boxes the characters for the 2 sets are taken.

When you choose a new lesson on the 'Main' page, the character set on this card is changed according to the new lesson.

If you want to practice with stress on certain characters, you can write them into the input boxes repeatedly. For instance, if you want to practice 'b' and '6', write 'b' several times into the letters field and put some '6's into the numbers field, alone or in addition to the characters which are already there. A character that occurs more often will be chosen by the program's random number generator more likely than a single occurrence. Note that the length of all character strings which build a character set must not exceed 256 characters.

Lesson 19 contains all commonly used characters. Lesson 20 contains some additional characters which are found on the amateur bands but are not necessary for amateur radio exams.


Prosigns

Learning the Code with MorseCat
PROSIGNS	Learning the code <==

In this program, prosigns are represented by special characters:

___

CT (commence of traffic) by >

___

AS (wait a second) by @

___

VE (understood) by %

___

AR (end of transmission) by +

___

SK (end of traffic) by *

CT sometimes is interpreted as KA, AS as EB and VE as SN.

When you write down these prosigns, never use the program's single character representation, but only the two character abbreviation and place a horizontal line above the two characters.

The error sign is written down as a wavy line and is represented by '~' in this program. If activated in 'Character Sets' - 'Prosigns', the program, when in groups mode, will send '~' after a wrong character, then the correct group that precedes the one with the error will be repeated, and then, the new group will be sent correctly, without the error, just like you should do if an error occurs.


Plain text

Learning the Code with MorseCat
PLAIN TEXT	Learning the code <==

Plain text has to be put into the editor window before you can use it, either by typing it or by loading it from file.

Even beginners who have not learned the whole alphabet yet can use any ASCII file that is loaded into the editor. Check 'Filter', and then, only those words will be sent which are built from no other characters than those contained and activated on the 'Character Set' card. It is recommended to use this feature with the 'Random' radio button selected.

After loading or filtering new text there may be a delay of a few seconds because the program needs some time for formatting, so be patient if you have to wait a moment for the first character to be heard after pressing the start button.


Farnsworth method

Learning the Code with MorseCat
FARNSWORTH METHOD	Learning the code <==

When the check box 'Farnsworth' is checked, each character will be sent at least at 12 wpm, even if overall speed is set to a lower value. A slower speed will be accomplished by making the spacing between characters and words larger than the standard ratio of 3 dot length per character space and 7 dot length per word space.

It is recommended to keep this box checked all the time because it is easier to learn the rhythm of a character if it is sent at 12 wpm minimum. At slower character speeds, you are tempted to count the single dots and dashes, but this makes it more difficult to recall each character than just recognizing it by it's characteristic rhythmical sound.

The other rhythm settings in the lower right portion of the main window should not be changed as long as you don't want to have special high speed training. For beginners, the preset dot : dash : element space : character space : word space ratio of 1:3:1:3:7 will be optimal, as the same ratio is used for ham radio exams.


Checking your text

Learning the Code with MorseCat
CHECKING YOUR TEXT	Learning the code <==

In the 'Text' window on the main page, you can read the characters sent by the program. Normally, this feature should be switched of. When switched on, there are two modes. If the check box is clicked for the first time, it becomes grayed, and text is not shown until a group or word has been finished and a space is sent. After the second click, it is checked regularly, and now, you can see each character immediately after it has been sent.

On the page 'Check Results', you can check the text you wrote down. The last 16000 characters sent by the program are shown.


Speed

Speed	Overview <==

SPEED VARIATION

Speed is set using the spin-edit box in the right part of the program window.

If the box left of 'Var. max.' is checked, sending speed is varied, starting with the speed in the 'Speed' box, slowly approaching the speed which is set in the 'Var. max.' box within a number of seconds you can determine in the 'V.-interval' field.

If this box is checked normally, speed will continuously increase and decrease between the two limits; if the box is grayed, speed will vary only once and then will stay constant at 'Var. max.' level.

For beginners, it is recommended to use small speed variations and long time intervals, not more than 20 percent during the whole period.

SPEED INDICATION

(Page 'Main' group 'Info')

In the 'Info-Box', you can see the actual character speed which is calculated by the number of characters sent in the time since pressing the start button.

Speed is measured by using the word 'Paris'. 12 wpm means that this word is sent exactly 12 times per minute. If you count all character elements in this word you will notice that the overall length of the word 'Paris' plus one word space is 50 times the length of a dot, so 1 dot lasts 100 milliseconds. The speed setting of this program is based on this principle. No wonder that the actual count of characters per second varies, depending on whether a text contains many letters 'e' or more 'j's.

In Germany, speed is commonly indicated in letters per minute (1 wpm = 5 lpm). Numbers and punctuation signs are counted as two letters.

You can choose between displaying speed as words per minute (wpm - most countries) or letters per minute (lpm - Germany and a few other countries) on the 'Preferences' card.


Sound

Sound	Overview <==

The program tries to detect Soundblaster and Adlib compatible soundcards.

If no soundcard is found, the program uses the built-in speaker, which also can be selected manually. (Click the checkbox 'Soundblaster' on the 'Setup' page).

If you have a sound card and it doesn't produce a sound, you must switch to the speaker. (On some computers, the program doesn't seem to be able to operate the sound card, even if the card is detected and the card's address is set correctly - you can experiment, at your own risk, using the 'Setup' page. I cannot reproduce the error on my own equipment, here, everything seems to work fine. I have been looking for a solution for a long time, have compared my source code to several sources I could find on the web and have read several documents about Soundblaster FM programming, but I cannot find a mistake. If you have better knowledge of how to make FM sounds under Windows, I should be glad about an e-mail. My e-mail address: dk5ci@newsfactory.net).

If you are using Windows NT, it is more likely that you don't get sound from your soundcard because the sound card registers are accessed directly by the program and as far as I know, NT requires everything to be done using the operating system. I am afraid I can't do anything to change this.

On computers using a speaker driver for playing .wav files (e. g. laptops without soundcard), it is recommended to deactivate Windows' system sounds.

In order to improve the timing of the Morse code characters, no other program should be active when MorseCat is run, especially under Windows 3.1. Switch off screen savers and avoid accessing your hard disk as long as characters are being sent.

Most of the program functions that can cause timing instabilities are deactivated during code generation in order to have the program produce rhythmically correct characters even at higher speeds. At 60 wpm, characters are sufficiently correct for high speed training on my old 50 MHz laptop. Maximum speed is 120 wpm.

REMARK:

As long as playback is paused, several functions, e. g. mode switching, are deactivated. You first have to push the 'Stop' button if you want to use those functions.


Sending with a manual key

Sending Morse Code
SENDING WITH A MANUAL KEY	Overview <==

The correct posture of your hand is essential for a good Morse handwriting.

Hold the knob with three fingers. The index finger holds the rim of the knob on the far end as if you wanted to pull the key to your body. Thumb and middle finger touch the rim more from below than from above, because they are used to pull up the knob after each character element.

To close the contact, pressure is exerted on the knob by your index finger; the pressure must come from the wrist, with some tension into the direction of your body at the same time. (For this reason, the key should be fastened to the table.)

To open the contact, lift the lever using your thumb and middle finger. Leaving this action to the spring will not result in a good handwriting. The only task of the spring is to prevent the contact from closing when your hand is not on the knob, not to open the contact at the end of an element.

It would be a good practice to temporarily remove the spring and to send without it. If your signs sound good this way, you have understood the principle. This does not mean that everybody should always set the force of the spring to zero; actually, finding the most suitable setting is a matter of personal taste and feeling.

You can see how your Morse handwriting looks on the 'Send' page.

Using this method, you will notice that it is easier to achieve a good handwriting with equal dot- and element spacing length than by merely hammering on the knob.


Watch your Signs on Virtual CRT

Sending Morse Code
WATCH YOUR SIGNS ON VIRTUAL CRT	Overview <==

In send mode, you can watch your Morse handwriting on a virtual CRT screen.

To use this mode, you must connect your key in parallel to joystick button #1. Do this at your own risk.

Do not use the joystick button to send, this will not permit a good handwriting. Instead, look for your oldest joystick from the junk box or buy an inexpensive one, drill a hole to it and install a socket that fits your key's plug.

You have to start send mode explicitly by pressing 'Start send mode' on the 'Send' page. 100 characters will be shown which you can use for practicing, but of course, you can feel free to use any other text.

The program attempts to recognize your text. In order to synchronize the automatic character recognition, you may send some characters like 'v v v' before beginning the practice. Note that the decoder line is deactivated after 200 characters have been received; this is a Morse code trainer and not a decoder for receiving Morse transmissions.

Watch your dot : dash : pause ratio on the scope. You can conveniently do this after you have finished your transmission (you must press 'Stop send mode' first, for as long as you are in send mode, no other features will be enabled), for you can scroll the CRT screen back and forth with the arrow keys as your whole transmission is digitally memorized. You even can listen to an acoustic playback with the 'Playback' button.

Vary the zoom factor, and measure the exact ratio of the character elements by clicking on them with both mouse buttons (cf. bubble help for details); the length and the ratio of the elements is indicated digitally to the nearest millisecond above the screen display.

Remember: The quality of your signs is best when the dot : dash : element spacing : character spacing : word spacing ratio is 1 : 3 : 1 : 3 : 7 (but be content with values about 10 to 20 percent from this, for even with electronic keyers, the exact values cannot be achieved).