Qrq Training Tips

Comment by Brett Miller on May 10, 2012 at 2:55pm

So it's been a year after I wrote all that junk up at the top. I still agree with myself on probably more than 90% of it, but the bottom line is this: If you are a CW operator, who is hoping to increase your speed...here is the way:

--------[ Have QSOs with real people as often as possible.

Comment by Brett Miller on May 10, 2012 at 9:27pm

I also want to reiterate that the alledged 50-55 wpm "hump" is in my opinion a very detrimental myth or hoax. It doesn't have to be that way for young or new ops, and also many experience operators report no such 55 wpm speed hump.

I believe there is a rational explanation why the hump is felt for many operators and not seen by others. It is simply there for *some* people who copied by the letter for many decades prior to trying to QRQ above 50 wpm and being forced to copy by the word. These ops had to then learn a new skill, which had its own time based learning curve. We need to quit telling people to expect a speed hump. It's psychologically counterproductive.

Comment by Rich Langford on June 4, 2012 at 5:48am

Thank you the very interesting topicand sharing your knowledge with us. I am very much a beginer on high speed morse and I am having problems with sending cw at speeds over say 35 wpm, so I am learning to touch type using Mavis Beacon a touch typing teaching course,which over here is less than 10 pounds to buy. It is very good at teaching the basic finger positioning, but because they are teaching for use with a PC they try to teach capitals and punctuation, not much use to us. So my tip is get an old keyboard not connected to anything, and just have it in your lap when watching the TV and then as the actors speak try to write down what they are saying, I find it has helped me a lot to get my speed up and I have never seen this anywhere else before, and it works for me, Vy 73 Rich G4FAD

Comment by Brett Miller on June 4, 2012 at 9:22am

Practicing with an unplugged board sounds like a good idea, and it seems like you've got some real dedication to learning touch typing. FB on that for sure.

Funny you would mention how formal training teaches us to capitalize and use punctuation. Last night, during one of my regular QRQ skeds, I glanced at the LCD screen on my W5UXH keyer once and noticed I had capitalized an abbreviation...I think it may have been something like "QRQ" or "QSL", and of course it momentarily slowed me down. Back in high school I had typing I and typing II class, after which I was typing an error prone 80 wpm. I can type much faster than that now if I push myself, so for most of my qsos i am ahead of the buffer enough to go back and fix errors...usually. But for full break-in CW I sometimes hang back closer in case I want to let the other op have a chance to interject comments. Of course, I could hit the "dump buffer" key, but it's more elegant to have everything sync up nicely. The goal, for me, is to feel as natural on both sides as a phone conversation or talking in person. I still occasionally use punctuation, but I am trying to phase it out. It's not as critical at the moment as I'm not as fast as some people. QRQ for me, right now, means 45-55 wpm, because it's the extent of my receiving. I'm working on that though, and after I get past 65 or 70 I plan on using no punctuation at all, since by that speed it could seriously break the continuity of conversational flow.

There was a piece of software I used several years ago to brush up on my typing when I was first trying to get into QRQ. I can't remember what it was called, but it was a freeware trial version of some paid typing tutor program. When you typed, it made a noise, and changed the color of the text you were typing. An error would show up in red. After the time elapsed, you were given statistics, including speed. I wish I still had that, but I think I lost track of it years ago. Chuck Vaughn has a nice link on this site to a web page containing a similar type of test. I tried it a few days ago and it was fun and useful. However, for me, the challenge is still copying, but even that is coming up to speed at a steady pace. The more CW I work, the more natural it becomes to use it, at all speeds.

Comment by Chuck aa0hw on January 2, 2013 at 8:23am

FABIAN KURZ, provides an excellent example of being fluent in high speed morse code !

Look at all the books he has already copied in morse code:

FROM HIS WEBSITE

Books that I "read" in Morse Code, using ebook2cw (http://fkurz.net/ham/ebook2cw.html):

FABIAN KURZ, DJ1YFK

Comment by Chuck aa0hw on January 22, 2013 at 10:15am

Using MIXXX as a variable speed cw file audio player

Mixxx, is a free open source audio file player that has variable speed with excellent CUE and REVIEW hotkeys. It is made for DJ's but makes for one of the best training tools for qrq training with cw audio mp3 files.

There are 4 hotkeys that are already default on MIXXX.

the keyboard letters "a" and "s" and the keyboard buttons "F1" and "F2"

"a" - fast rewind/review

"s" - fast forward/cue

"F1" - incremental slow down (adjustable by %) - I prefer 5 percent

"F2" - incremental speed up (adjustable by %) - I prefer 5 percent

The method I found most useful is to use the review hotkey to go back over a missed word multiple times until you finally are able to copy it. You can slow it down by hitting the keyboard letter "a". If you find that at the current speed and after multiple repeats of hearing a missed word, you still are not able to copy it, you can slow it down by tapping the "F1" and try again a few times and if you still do not copy it, keep hitting the hotkey that slows it down("F1") until you finally are able to copy the missed word, then slowly creep the speed back up with "F2" and listen to the word again a couple of times, hit "F2" again and speed it up and repeate this process untill you reach the original speed. The "F2" hotkey speeds the audio file up by 5 percent.(if you select that in the MIXXX options / interface) Pick a speed for a cw file OR create a cw file with FABIAN's qrq program, where you can copy around 70 to 80 percent of it...so there are not too many missed words to go back over...check out the video demo of this training regime HERE

Comment by Chuck aa0hw on February 18, 2014 at 1:32pm

HERE IS ANOTHER WAY TO PRACTICE QRQ CW COPY using MIDI FILEs and a variable speed MIDI PLAYER

This is an intro video on how to create and use TEXT TO MIDI files for qrq cw practice. The midi files that you create from text, are much smaller than audio mp3 or wave files. Being able to vary the MIDI PLAYER's playback speed AND / OR the pitch of the cw audio tones are strong advantages for qrq cw practice with this setup. The MIDI PLAYER, takes the MIDI FILE and converts it to a virtual cw keying output, just like a CW KEYER does to key your rig. However, in this setup, a software CODE PRACTICE OSCILLATOR is keyed by the MIDI PLAYER's MIDI OUTPUT.

HERE ARE THE LINKS MENTIONED IN THE VIDEO:
1. Mfreqshifter
http://www.meldaproduction.com/download.php?bundle=MFreeEffectsBundle
2. General info on MIDI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIDI
3. loopMIDI
http://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software/loopmidi.html
4. ASIO4ALL
http://www.asio4all.com/
5. Bipper CPO vst plugin
http://www.mindthepressure.org/plugz.php
6. C- tuner VST PLUGIN
http://www.samplerchan.com/
7. Engineers Filter VST PLUGIN
http://www.rs-met.com/freebies.html
8. MINIHOST MODULAR - VST HOST
http://www.image-line.com/support/FLHelp/html/plugins/Minihost%20Mo...
http://www.image-line.com/documents/news.php?entry_id=1391136116
9, SPEEDY MIDI
http://sourceforge.net/projects/speedymidi/
http://speedymidi.sourceforge.net/
10. Morse MIDI
http://www.dxatlas.com/Download.asp

Comment by Rich Langford on June 16, 2015 at 1:29pm

Hello All,

When I am using a Ten Tec Omni 7 to receive over 50 wpm Morse, I find the best way to resolve the cw is to have the filter quite wide (maybe 500 Hz plus if conditions allow) then I use the RIT to tune in the station till the tone is quite harsh. I find it easier to read the dits and dahs then. Also I have the AF set Below the RF control and the volume as low as possible, again this seems to help. Is there any advice that the more experienced operators on here can give us newbies?Thanks, 73 Rich G4FAD..

Comment by Paul E. Genaw on June 16, 2015 at 9:02pm

I have my bandwidth set at 300/250 Hrz .... I like my
RF gain just below 9 . under my AF gain
Thats for stations with clear copy signal
of 559 -599 some QRM/QSB ..... from
35-50 WPM . my digital filters are all in
the center posistion, I think true copy is
on the air with real QSOing .... longer
then 3 minutes.... Nice Rag Chew.
Good Luck ... CW is A-1
Paul K8PG

Comment by Chuck aa0hw on February 9, 2017 at 11:43am

QRQ CW TRAINING - advanced setup for FABIAN's QRQ APP - send a random list of words

https://fkurz.net/ham/qrq.html
Fabian Kurz, DJ1YFK

SETUP:
The tone from Fabian's QRQ APP, is diverted and regenerated so that you can manually dial in the received CW PITCH, RISE - FALL time, RAISED COSINE window, VOLUME, ETC...using some free VST PLUGINS and a FREE vst host... https://www.image-line.com/support/FLHelp/html/plugins/Minihost%20M...

here are the free plugins that perform the cw regeneration
1. sineCW - http://qrqcwnet.ning.com/forum/topics/home-brewed-software-code-pra...
2. reagate - http://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/
3. Mbandpass - https://www.meldaproduction.com/MBandPass
4. Mtuner - https://www.meldaproduction.com/MTuner
5. SPAN - spectrum analyzer vst plugin http://www.voxengo.com/product/span/

pulse/jack module:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/572120/how-to-use-jack-and-pulseaudi...
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fedora/17/html/Musicians_Guide...
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/trusty/+package/pulseaudio-module-jack

LV2 PLUGINS
https://github.com/brummer10/jalv_select

this video is using LINUX MINT 17.3 & W.I.N.E.,
however, you can still get this to work on windows OS,
in a similar fashion, since mini-host modular VST HOST, is native windows application.

Comment by Chuck aa0hw on February 10, 2017 at 7:45am

QRQ CW TRAINING - sineCW - CPO for qrq cw training on Learn CW Online

demo's a setup that redirects the audio output from the LCWO website, to some unique VST PLUGINS that then key an adjustable software CPO VST PLUGIN called sineCW(see link below) which outputs a much cleaner cw note/tone from the usual Learn CW Online audio output
https://lcwo.net/plaintext

THE A position(all the way to the left) is the normal LCWO audio
THE B position(all the way to the right) is the audio from sineCW

sineCW will let you adjust:
1. PITCH
2. VOLUME
3. RAISED COSINE WINDOW
4. RISE and FALL Times
5. center and q of its internal audio bandpass filter
6. type of tone, sine, square, saw, pulse etc...

more info on sineCW here:
http://qrqcwnet.ning.com/forum/topics/home-brewed-software-code-pra...

this example is using LINUX and the JACK AUDIO CONNECTION KIT and PULSE AUDIO JACK MODULE...from KXstudio
Jack Audio lets you redirect the LCWO browser audio output and
send it to a VST HOST where the Regate and sineCW vst plugins process the original LCWO audio and use that audio instead to key the software CPO sineCW..

Comment by Steve Steltzer on June 18, 2017 at 6:19am

Well Brett, it looks like it's now 5 years since you posted this stuff, hi. But thank you, still interesting,relevant, and helpful. 73, Steve, WF3T

Comment by Chuck aa0hw on January 22, 2018 at 1:16pm

Here is a demo at 123 wpm for QRQ copy by ear TRAINING with randomly sent whole word sounds from FABIAN's QRQ APP...this video demo's a way to build your own high performance QRQcw sine wave shaped "keyable" software CW CPO oscillator for better audio and better qrq copy by ear, using the help of some LINUX AUDIO LV2 plugins.

This video demo's an ALL LINUX NATIVE LV2 PLUGIN software solution for building a custom QRQ CW software "keyable" oscillator which is demo'D at 123 wpm... this raised cosine edged adjustable software CPO setup is "keyed" by FABIAN's QRQ TRAINING APP...and the adjustment of all the app's settings is accomplished by using FLdigi's RT QSK CHANNEL CONTROL 1khz tone to "KEY" this custom oscillator while listening to a text file at 123 wpm, and adjusting weight, rise/fall time, CW PITCH, CW VOLUME...then FABIAN's qrq app is brought up and demo'D to see how the QRQ TRAINING with RANDOM WORD SENDING at 123 wpm sounds... with... and without filtering and weight adjustment

the apps used are :

1. CALF 5 BAND EQUALIZER
this is used to adjust the WEIGHT of the cw elements
2. PURE SINE WAVE GENERATOR
this is used to create the actual 828 hertz qrq cw tones
3. ZamGateX2
this creates a 4ms rise and fall time to allow raised cosine like edges on each cw note
4. CALF LOW PASS FILTER - get rid of edge noise
5. CALF HIGH PASS FILTER - get rid of edge noise

NOTE: once all settings have been found, you can get all these apps into INGEN and store the apps and their setting for easy recall the next time you want to use this software CPO setup
http://drobilla.net/software/ingen

Comment by Chuck aa0hw on January 24, 2018 at 11:08am

This video demo's an advanced setup for QRQcw copy by ear training, to allow MIXXX, a variable speed audio file player, to keep the same pitch while you vary the MORSE CODE AUDIO FILE PLAYING speed AND also keep it silent if you hit the REVIEW/REWIND button during the training sessions, so you don't hear a high pitched squeal during the rewind process...

this setup uses two previous setup techniques that will be needed to get MIXXX to work as shown - those videos are here:
1. morse code audio to morse code midi converter :
http://qrqcwnet.ning.com/profiles/blogs/using-the-linux-lv2-plugin-...

2. pure sine wave shaped cw generator using a triggered GATE:
https://youtu.be/Shorl8MxqyY

http://kxstudio.linuxaudio.org/

NOTE: the OS being used in this video is Lubuntu 16.04 on an i7 quad core laptop...MIXXX also has windows and mac version... NOTE: you could setup a similar construction using WINDOWS VST's and maybe also using MAC's audio unit plugins

Comment by Bill Kramer on April 14, 2020 at 7:59am

Plover: A means of sending QRQ cw at speeds up to 300 wpm

This is a 9 year old thread i'm bringing back to life. Every year or so I go take a look at this project and nothing much has happened. Last evening I took a look at the site and to my surprise they now have a working program written in python that will work on a Windows, Linux, or mac osx platform. They have keyboard information and modification procedures. It also appears that a number of people are building and selling keyboards for its use. The downloads are free. I haven't pursued it any farther than that at the present time.

Here is the website www.openstenoproject.org/plover

Comment by Chuck aa0hw on May 8, 2020 at 1:29pm

Here is a video to help with QRQ CW COPY BY EAR TRAINING - uses a CW TEXT FILE to MIDI FILE program: "MORSEmidi", a variable speed CW MIDI FILE PLAYER with CUE & REVIEW controls: "ARDOUR", and a MIDI CW Keyer, AD5DZ CW KEYER where you can adjust the pitch,volume,rise/fall time and even choose which raised cosine window to listen to..., and finally a simple bandpass filter, to polish up the final CW audio to your speakers or headphones

grab a text file and shoot it over to: http://www.dxatlas.com/MorseMidi/ to create a CW MIDI FILE that can be played - by Ardour & the AD5DZ software CW KEYER you can adjust the speed of the CW MIDI FILE PLAYBACK using Ardour's https://ardour.org/ TEMPO CONTROL you can REWIND and REVIEW a missed word or phrase using your MOUSE to click on the Ardour MIDI FILE TRACK and go BACK and repeat & repeat & repeat etc... take the MIDI OUTPUT of Ardour and send it to the AD5DZ software CW KEYER APP module, where you can adjust the CW PITCH, cw volume, CW RISE/FALL Time and even the raised cosine windows of the CW ELEMENTs https://github.com/recri/keyer a simple BANDPASS FILTER goes between the AD5DZ CW KEYER audio output and the speakers/headphones...to polish up the final sound of your CW MIDI FILE - cw audio playback notes... https://pedalboards.moddevices.com/plugins/aHR0cDovL21vZGRldmljZXMu...

Qrq Training Tips

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