Roy Lewallen wrote:
Over 30 years ago I designed and built something similar to what you're
describing. I ran the CW signal through a sharp audio filter, detected
it with a diode, and used that to key an audio oscillator (rather than
amplifying the original signal as you describe). It was interesting, but
worked only for a rock-solid signal which was simple to copy anyway. It
didn't take much QRN or QRM to cut holes in the output signal which made
copy impossible.

The brain is an amazing signal processing mechanism. It's really hard to
beat. If I had a hearing disability, I'd look into various amplifying
and frequency shaping devices and perhaps some types of audio signal
processing. But in my opinion it's best to send more-or-less the
original signal to the brain and let it do what it's good at.

Hi Roy,

So much depends on the nature of the hearing problem. I have a lot of
holes in my hearing, as well as a different tone of tinnitus in both
ears. It took me over 6 months/3 hours per day to learn CW to 5 wpm. And
it still had to be crystal clear signal.

I learned a lot of things during this time. The main thing is that my
brain gives equal weight to all sounds, whether the CW I am trying to
copy, or whatever happens to be around it. Turns out that the same is
true for multiple people speaking, or one person speaking with an air
conditioner on in the room. This is probably related to the length of
time that I have been hard of hearing (started at 7 with a bad case of
the mumps, then the tinnitus started at 18)

If that's
not feasible, then use a digital mode that's specifically designed for
easy detection with electronic circuits and let them do all the work.

Yup, I'm a big fan of PSK31.

- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -