Getting ready for Field Day isn't just the physical logistics. There are some mental logistics to get in gear, as well. The most important one of these for me involves using this app, which I keep on my phone:
I set the speed at about 37 WPM or a bit higher and let her rip. Sometimes I consciously try to copy and other times I just let it play in the background to get my ears "muscle memory" back to where it should be. I find that doing this for a week or couple of weeks before Field Day helps tremendously, especially when I haven't been able to get on the air and conduct actual QSOs.
CW Trainer by Wolphi LLC is not a freebee, but I think it's worth every penny that I paid - I think it was a little over $2 when I purchased it back in 2018. Here's the actual description that's from the Google Play screen:
Learn or improve Morse code with Morse Trainer for Ham Radio.
Learn or improve Morse code with Morse Trainer. Now with Farnsworth speed and Koch method.
If you are a ham radio (amateur radio) operator or just want to learn Morse code. With a lot of settings it is very comfortable to adjust Morse Trainer to your current level.
The following settings are available:
- Frequency (200 - 2200Hz)
- Waveform (sine / triangle)
- Fading (to reduce click at the end of a dot or dash)
- Speed (2Wpm - 52Wpm)
- Farnsworth speed
- Spacing (spacing between dots or dashes)
- Dot-Dash Ratio (length ratio of dashes compared to dots)
- Letter Spacing (Space between letters)
- Word Spacing (Space between words)
Five different learning modes are available in Morse Trainer
- Random groups of X mode: Morse Trainer will play groups of X randomly selected letter, numbers or special characters. X can be an amount between 1-9. Those characters can be individually selected. If you want to learn just "s","i" and "e" just select the 3 letters and Morse Trainer will create groups of X with those 3 letters.
The characters can also be chosen from 20 lessons of the Koch method.
- Real ham radio callsign mode: Morse Trainer will randomly play real amateur radio callsign from a database of 5000 callsigns which appeared in Contests over the last couple of years.
- QSO text mode: Morse Trainer will play randomly play QSO text. The database consists of 300 different qso texts.
- Most common English words mode: Morse Trainer will play randomly the 500 most used English words.
- Own text mode: Enter your own text and Morse Trainer will play it over and over again.
- Ebook mode: Text files can be loaded from SD card
Morse Trainer is priced less than the cost of a fancy coffee and it is a great app to learn and improve you CW speed away from your amateur radio station or your PC.
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