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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Giving a helping hand

I was contacted about a week ago; by a private telecommunications firm in California. They are experiencing some intermod or some kind of mixing problem on one of their repeaters, I guess. They asked me if I'd be willing to listen to a Morse Code ID that is coming in over their system; and if I could, would I please translate for them?

The engineer in charge sent me a WMA file and the CW ID, while kind of raspy, was clear enough for easy copy. I'd say it was at a rate of about 20 WPM or so.

In any event, I was able to e-mail back with the two commercial IDs that I was able to hear; for which they were most grateful. I think that now, they'll be able to contact the other parties and clear up their unintentional interference problems.

I guess being able to understand Morse Code still counts for something. I also guess that a lot of folks are either visiting this site; or my Website - or maybe Googling Morse Code comes up with a link to me pretty high up in the chain? In any event, it's fun to get e-mails like that and being able to help.

73 de Larry W2LJ

3 comments:

  1. That is very cool Larry, glad you were able to help them out!

    73 de Jeff, KE9V

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  2. It is very cool! But they might have used a PC decoder or comparable piece of hardware. But, then you wouldn't have a great story to tell :)

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  3. In all honesty, the thought never occurred to me to direct him towards "CW Get" or one of the other CW decoding programs. I suppose that would have worked just as well; but would have been a bit impersonal.

    I was happy to provide the service; and I really got a kick out of the experience. And maybe, just maybe this gentleman now has a favorable image of Amateur Radio and Amateur Radio ops.

    Personally, I was also quite relieved that the callsign was commercial and not Amateur.

    73 de Larry W2LJ

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