"Dee Flint" wrote in message
...

"Mike Andrews" wrote in message
...
In (rec.radio.amateur.misc), Cmd
Buzz Corey wrote:

I used to teach Novice classes, and I always assumed that anyone could
learn the code if they really wanted to. I found that some people had
difficulty telling the difference between a dit from a dah unless it
was
sent very slowy and the dah made a lot longer than the dit, but when
sending a character that contained several dits or dahs or
combinations,
they simply could not tell one from the other. It wasn't that they
lacked the skill to learn the code, I could right out characters in
dits
and dahs on the board and they could recoginize them, it was an
interpertation problem with the brain of telling the sound of a dit
from
the sound of a dah. People with hearing aids often had a difficult
time.

You hit that part right on the head. My XYL has a deep notch in her
hearing
response curve, from about 400 Hz to about 2 KHz, due to playing viola
in
a symphony orchestra for 15 years, sitting right in front of the brass
section[1]. She's having the very devil of a time with Morse, mostly
because she has problems distinguishing between dit and dah. She has
learned not to trust her ears, and now she's trying to learn to read
with
them. The deep notch right where most people tune to read CW and where
the
various tapes, CDs, and tutor programs all put the tone, also makes it
very
difficult for her.


Most of the computer programs let you select a pitch you like. Of course
you would have to arrange with the VE team well in advance of the test to
have one set up at that pitch for her testing.

Or just make sure that you can turn the volume WAY up just like my ex had
to
(70% hearing loss in each ear and constant ringing of the ears).

When she passes Element 1, I have to go learn American Sign Language and
pass a proficiency test.


Sounds fair to me.

[1] I'll bet most people don't think much about hearing damage in people
playing in symphony orchestras. It's fairly common.


Being an amateur musician, I've read quite a bit about it.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE



I've recently read somewhere (if only I could remember where) of a totally
deaf ham
who operates cw. He was a no-coder until he became deaf. He uses a homebrew
gizmo plugged into the headphone socket that flashes a light. Was allowed to
use it for the test without any problems.
His only problem is that from around 15wpm the light does not come on and go
out fast enough. IIRC his device uses standard tungsten filament bulb. What
would be the best alternative, i.e. "switches" faster, LED or neon bulb?
The article had a schematic of the sound-to-light converter - I remember it
could be adjusted to allow for signal strength, noise and variations in
output characteristics of different radios.

I suppose someone reasonably competent in electronic design, not me ,
could "re-invent" such a thing without raising a sweat.

73
Roger ZR3RC