With Varying Frequency – Amateur Radio Ponderings

Ok, I’m a bit out of touch how to implement this on a OS-X machine – ideas?  Clients?  Software?

Assistance appreciated!

 
73

 
Steve
K9ZW

——

copied material from several net sources and from emails sent to me:

Now you can send and receive morse code via the Internet thanks to CWirc, an X-Chat plugin for sending and receiving raw morse code over IRC.

The website at http://users.skynet.be/ppc/cwirc/ says:

CWirc is a plugin for the X-Chat IRC client to transmit raw morse code over the internet using IRC servers as reflectors. The transmitted morse code can be received in near real-time by other X-Chat clients with the CWirc plugin.

CWirc tries to emulate a standard amateur radio rig : it sends and receives morse over virtual channels, and it can listen to multiple senders transmitting on the same channel.

Morse code is keyed locally using a straight or iambic key connected to a serial port, or using the mouse buttons, and the sound is played through the soundcard, or through an external sounder.

Note that CWirc doesn’t do any morse decoding : it simply transmits and receives morse code timing events.
A standard IRC user on the same IRC channel you’re transmitting morse on will only see coded lines when morse code is transmitted. Only other CWirc users can receive what you send.

The website also has historic information on morse code and the telegraph.

CWirc
http://users.skynet.be/ppc/cwirc/

Google “MorseKOB”   http://home.earthlink.net/~n7rz/morse/

There are a few Morse operators around yet that can use the old wire
telegraph code….it is almost a lost art for sure. There are even fewer that are “bi lingual” and can use both International Morse and American Morse codes fluently.

Now, instead of just the bus and the phone, we have the Internet. It is no different in kind, and I bet it will be at least as useful to those who want a place to make mistakes in trying to be better CW operators as the technology of my day was to me.

It goes one better than the phone, though, because sites like this could well be one way to expose those not yet licensed to the utility of Morse code.

I can’t see for the life of me how this would be a thing bad enough to have one poster spouting disguised obscenties and another one begging for a break. Why is it that no matter what someone does to promote Morse code and CW, one or two of its proponents jumps in and finds some reason to put it down if it isn’t being done exactly the way he would do it. Things like this will “preseve” the mode right into extinction. Swearing and being generally dour is NOT the way to encourage others to use the mode.

I, for one, would point to this site as a good tool for those who want some off-the-air practice before they put it on the air.

Ed, W1RFI

Originally Posted by N7BXY Where indeed has the romance of being a Ham gone! When you use radios to communicate by CW, not a computer. Building your own transmitter with a 6AG7 as a crystal controlled oscillator, and an 807 as the final amplifier is gone and in the past, but, where is the love for listening for that weak signal from far away and responding to the CQ. That’s inspiring to me.

But almost every one of us used non-radio technology to learn the code, even it it was just sitting down with the chart and memorizing. Vinyl LP records were the “hip” technology of the day. I have to wonder whether old timers of that generation were displeased to see Morse code put onto vinyl to encourage newcomers to learn it easily.

We aren’t using a 6AG7 often nowadays (though we can). But there is now a wealth of kits and projects available that lets more hams build more equipment than was practical in those good old days. There is experimentation in software-defined radios, where modulation and demodulation is done using DSP and analog/digital devices to interface between the digital and analog world. The magic isn’t gone; it is just a new trick some of us have never seen before.

The site is an interesting novelty to an experienced CW op; it is an interesting simulation of CW use that could attract newcomers to the mode.

Amateur Radio has always been connected to other technology of the day. Did hams fear the first phone patches? Do they fear the interface between Amateur Radio and the Internet?

The Internet has brought value to many areas of my life. Amateur Radio is one of them.

Ed, W1RFI

for anyone interested in IRC , google xchat , it’s a free client avail. for windows and linux.

the following are the two nets I frequent :

irc.undernet.us.org common ports 6667

irc.superhosts.net common ports 6667

you may need to add servers to the client. or have an option to use the client command of :

/server ( the above server addresses one at a time )

after connecting you’ll need to join the channel by this command:

/join #hamradio

you’ll also need a nick name – user name most use their call so the command would be:

/nick ( your call )

NOTE do NOT use the ( parentheses ) in any commands.

73 de kc4wms