"Dick Carroll" wrote:

If you only had but a small portion of a clue you'd know that
most habd-sent CW not only *can* but WILL "thwart" most
consumer grade computer receive programs. I rather suspect
some more sophisticated writings do a lot better.


The Apple DOS 3.3 disk (early 1980's) came with a simple program, included
as a programming example, that did a fine job of copying code/CW. I hooked
an unused Apple II Plus to a Kenwood R2000 shortwave receiver and used that
program to copy code for several months. It rarely missed characters and
almost never missed enough characters to make the message unreadable. The
only times that program failed was when the signal I was trying to copy was
too deeply buried in the background noise or when multiple stations were
transmitting on the same frequency.

I haven't purchased a program like that recently, but surely they've
gotten better over the years. Is that not the case?


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/

"Dwight Stewart" wrote in message
ink.net...
"Dick Carroll" wrote:

If you only had but a small portion of a clue you'd know that
most habd-sent CW not only *can* but WILL "thwart" most
consumer grade computer receive programs. I rather suspect
some more sophisticated writings do a lot better.


The Apple DOS 3.3 disk (early 1980's) came with a simple program,
included
as a programming example, that did a fine job of copying code/CW. I hooked
an unused Apple II Plus to a Kenwood R2000 shortwave receiver and used
that
program to copy code for several months. It rarely missed characters and
almost never missed enough characters to make the message unreadable. The
only times that program failed was when the signal I was trying to copy
was
too deeply buried in the background noise or when multiple stations were
transmitting on the same frequency.

I haven't purchased a program like that recently, but surely they've
gotten better over the years. Is that not the case?


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/

No they haven't. The two conditions you state are still problems and good
reasons to learn to copy by ear. The human brain can sort it out when the
computer cannot. Poorly sent and spaced code is also still a problem.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

In article , "Dee D. Flint"
writes:

I haven't purchased a program like that recently, but surely they've
gotten better over the years. Is that not the case?


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/

No they haven't.

They HAVE, but there's no market for such things, not even with the
Military Intelligence School at Fort Huachuca on ELINT training.

The two conditions you state are still problems and good
reasons to learn to copy by ear.

Which is NO reason to mandate code testing for an AMATEUR radio
license by the government.

The human brain can sort it out when the
computer cannot.

Then all the other radio services "should" have used it for communications,
right?

Wrong. All the other radio services involved in communications have
either DROPPED it or never considered it in the first place.

Poorly sent and spaced code is also still a problem.

So?

US radio amateurs who do NOT use morse code modes (the majority)
don't require morsemanship skills.

LHA

"Dee D. Flint" wrote in message y.com...

No they haven't. The two conditions you state are still problems and good
reasons to learn to copy by ear. The human brain can sort it out when the
computer cannot. Poorly sent and spaced code is also still a problem.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

Seems like Morse Ops need to send better.

"Brian" wrote in message
om...
"Dee D. Flint" wrote in message
y.com...

No they haven't. The two conditions you state are still problems and
good
reasons to learn to copy by ear. The human brain can sort it out when
the
computer cannot. Poorly sent and spaced code is also still a problem.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

Seems like Morse Ops need to send better.

Yes some of them need to pay a lot more attention to the quality of their
sending.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

In article . net, "Dwight
Stewart" writes:

"Dick Carroll" wrote:

If you only had but a small portion of a clue you'd know that
most habd-sent CW not only *can* but WILL "thwart" most
consumer grade computer receive programs. I rather suspect
some more sophisticated writings do a lot better.

The Apple DOS 3.3 disk (early 1980's) came with a simple program, included
as a programming example, that did a fine job of copying code/CW. I hooked
an unused Apple II Plus to a Kenwood R2000 shortwave receiver and used that
program to copy code for several months. It rarely missed characters and
almost never missed enough characters to make the message unreadable. The
only times that program failed was when the signal I was trying to copy was
too deeply buried in the background noise or when multiple stations were
transmitting on the same frequency.

I haven't purchased a program like that recently, but surely they've
gotten better over the years. Is that not the case?

They have, but the mighty morsemen consider such to be desecrations
of the will of the old radio gods.

Perhaps you missed a back-and-forth I had in here with Ed Hare on a
programmer acquaintence who wrote an adaptive morse code cognition
program (on a standard PC, top of the line then, middle-level now) which
could compensate very well for variations in spacing, dot-dash lengths,
whatever "swing" is (a subjective term to morsemen), tone, rate, and
so forth. To him it was an intellectual challenge.

Some trials with my receiver and a long-wire antenna at his place
showed that there was damn little USE of morse code anywhere on HF
except in the amateur bands. There's no real market for such a thing
and the successful adaptive morse code cognition program remained
just a satisfying (to the programmer) intellectual exercise.

LHA

"Len Over 21" wrote:

"Dwight Stewart" writes:
I haven't purchased a program like that recently, but
surely they've gotten better over the years. Is that not
the case?

They have, but the mighty morsemen consider such to
be desecrations of the will of the old radio gods.


Well, I suspected the programs might have gotten at least somewhat better
over the years. The author of the program I had wrote about trying to
compensate for bad code by looking for patterns instead of focusing on each
individual dot and dash as it was being sent. The program also didn't use
hard rules for dot, dash, and space, length, instead interpretating each as
it went along. Obviously, I don't know the details, but the program did do a
pretty good job considering it was just a simple programming example
included with an operating system. My only complaint was that it didn't send
code like some of the other programs advertised, but I couldn't have used
that back then anyway.


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/

In article .net, "Dwight
Stewart" writes:

"Len Over 21" wrote:

"Dwight Stewart" writes:
I haven't purchased a program like that recently, but
surely they've gotten better over the years. Is that not
the case?

They have, but the mighty morsemen consider such to
be desecrations of the will of the old radio gods.

Well, I suspected the programs might have gotten at least somewhat better
over the years. The author of the program I had wrote about trying to
compensate for bad code by looking for patterns instead of focusing on each
individual dot and dash as it was being sent.

It is a trivial matter to do decisions on "longer" v. "shorter" once the on-
time has been converted to a numerical value...which is easily done by
a simple comparator gating a much higher repetitive pulse into a small
(8-bit) binary counter. That forms a "width-to-digital" conversion. The
count is then written into working memory and used by the main
program. Once that is in place, the main program can do its "pattern
checking" most anywhich way.

The program also didn't use
hard rules for dot, dash, and space, length, instead interpretating each as
it went along.

That part is the "adaptivity to rate" section. In an ordinary PC it is
fairly
easy to access the internal calendar clock for 100ths seconds time
hacks (actually shorter if you know the calendar-clock software details).

By comparing the overall "on" lengths it is possible to determine the
bit rate per unit time and thus the equivalent WPM rate.

Obviously, I don't know the details, but the program did do a
pretty good job considering it was just a simple programming example
included with an operating system. My only complaint was that it didn't send
code like some of the other programs advertised, but I couldn't have used
that back then anyway.

The sending part is fairly straightforward involving the keyboard addressing
a lookup table in memory and organizing the outgoing "on" and "off" times
at whatever rate is desired.

The interesting part of modifying that is to add some random variability
to the "on" and "off" times, which is selectable to bias those if desired,
and thus create the equivalent length-rate-bias "swing" of a human
telegrapher! :-) Sending is much easier to do and duplicate than
receiving.

As I said much earlier to others in here, I've seen it done and looked at
the source code, heard-seen it in action. The PCTA will not believe
it since they don't WANT to believe it so any argument with them is an
exercise in futility. :-)

As I also said earlier, there just isn't any market for such a program
since there is so little morse code communications being done in radio
now as compared to a half century ago.

LHA