KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

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Alexa can help you learn Morse Code

Posted: 24 Apr 2018 02:02 PM PDT
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/kb6nu...m_medium=email


Ive written before about how Id like to develop an Alexa skill to control
my IC-7300. I havent gotten around to that yet, but, Joe, N3HEE, has
developed an Alexa skill called Continuous Wave. Its designed to help you
learn Morse Code. To use this skill, you have to first enable it. Once
enabled, say,
Alexa, open Continuous Wave (Opens the skill at the main menu)

You can then say any of the following at any voice prompt
Learn

Practice

Alphabet

Common words

Random words

Words

Sentences

Call signs

Contest

Quick Brown Fox

QSO

Help

Stop To end your session.

Ive just played around with it for a bit, and found it to be quite
entertaining. One big drawback is that you cant set the speed. Its
currently limited to sending at 20 words per minute only.

Also, the learn function could use a little refining. When you give the
command learn, it asks you for a character, sends that character three
times, and then asks you for another. If you could set the speed at which
the skill sends characters, it could teach a character like the K7QO Code
Course, first sending the character slowly, then ramping up the speed.

Overall, though, I think this is a great first shot at a usable Alexa skill
for teaching Morse Code. I hope this is the first of many versions of this
skill.

Other ham radio skills

While I was poking around on Amazon, I decided to see what other amateur
radio skills might be available. Here are some that I found:

Ham Exam. Ask Alexa to ask you questions from the Technician Class question
pool.
Ham Lookup. Allows you to look up amateurs by call sign. Information is
provided from the callbook.info database.
Ham Radio Propagation Forecast. Reports the latest forecasts directly from
HamQSL (run by N0NBH).
ARRL Audio News. Adds ARRL Audio News to your Alexa flash briefing.


Have you found any other Alexa skills useful for amateur radio work? If so,
please tell us about them.

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