Quick Links to Major Topics:

Link to a Separate Help File:

Introduction:

Caution! Don't even look at a table of Morse code before commencing! This is guaranteed to slow you down by imprinting the lookup table in your brain the wrong way round!

"Teach" teaches audio Morse reading, from scratch. Audio Morse is sent through the soundcard. Farnsworth spacing is used. The volume is pre-set to be appropriate for a PC set up to send standard Windows sounds and messages at a "comfortable level". It can be adjusted further using the standard Windows sound-card adjustments. Most modern powered stereo speaker sets also have volume and tone controls on one of the speakers. It is usually more convenient to adjust with these. Many sound-cards will also have line and/or headphone outlets.

Installation:

Nothing is written to the Registry. To remove the program, simply delete the folder. A short-cut can be placed on the desktop in the normal manner.

"Quickstart" Procedure:

Detailed Instructions:

1. Teaching Mode: You can learn all common Morse characters in interactive mode. Use this mode first to begin the learning process.
2. Practice Mode: You can play any of 950 supplied texts for receiving practice. Use this mode when you have mastered all of the characters using mode 1.
3. Local Mode: You can covert any text visible in the left hand box to Morse, and play it through the soundcard at the overall speed, Farnsworth speed, and frequency of your choice. This text can be read from any text file, entered or edited by typing, or pasted from another document.

1. Interactive Teaching Mode:

1. Click on the "Start Teach" button. A window will appear labelled "characters to start", containing "1".
   • If you prefer the chracters to appear in upper-case, select "Advanced" (top toolbar) then "Toggle Uppercase". Selecting it again returns to lower-case.
   • If you are starting from scratch, press the "Start Sending" button.
   • If you are mid-way through the learning process, enter the number of characters that you think you have mastered. Press the "Start Sending" button.
2. A chart will appear at the bottom of the window, which will be continually updated as learning proceeds. See section 5 for an explanation of what it's telling you.
3. A Morse character will sound. If you know what it is, press the appropriate key on the keyboard. If you don't, wait. The program will tell you, so you'll know.
4. Further characters will sound. Keep pressing keys. More characters will be introduced as the program becomes convinced that you know the ones in use sufficiently well.
5. To stop at any stage, press the "Stop Teach" button. A message will appear telling you how you're doing.
6. To pause at any stage, press the "Pause" button. The button caption will change to "Unpause" and the program will wait. Press the button again to resume. See additional comments on the pause button.

2. Text Practice Mode:

• Set the Speed, Farnsworth Speed, and Audio Frequency as desired.
• If necessary, change the text number by clicking in the box and editing the number shown.
• If you do not want to view the text to be sent (you should not if you're going to try to read it), uncheck the "Show Text" and the "Show Progress" checkboxes, under their repective windows.
  
• Click the "Practice Text" button. The text selected will be loaded into the main window.
• Start sending by clicking the "Send Text" button.
• To pause at any stage, press the "Pause" button. The button caption will change to "Unpause" and sending will be suspended. Press the button again to resume. See additional comments on the pause button.
• You can click the "Abort/Show text" button at any time to halt sending and display only what has been sent, in both windows.
• When the text is completely sent, the next sequential text number will be shown in the number window. To load this, click the "Practice Text" button again and proceed as before. Alternatively, edit the number as desired.

Texts 901 to 950 are "typical CW QSOs". These contain callsign exchanges, Ham abbreviations, signal reports etc, and will familiarise you with the sort of thing you'll hear on the air. The callsigns are randomly generated. My apologies to those whose callsigns that may have been used in this practice.

Viewing sending progress: Characters passed to the soundcard for sending can be seen in a "Progress box". This is visible by default. Click on the "Show Progress" checkbox to close the window. Clicking again returns it. There is an unavoidable delay between characters appearing and being sent audibly. With some practice, it is possible to pause between words. This may be of value when sending texts for on-the-air practice sessions.  You can also pause the sending after a specified number of charcters. Click the "Unpause" button to continue your practice. 

3. Local Mode

• Clicking the "Load file" button. A standard open file dialogue screen will appear. Select and open any text file on your disk in the normal manner.
• cutting and pasting text from another document.
• Typing directly into the box.
• If you don't want the loaded text to be visible, clear the tick in the "Show Text" and "Show Progress" checkboxes in the top panel.

• * (star) - sounds "SK" (Signing off)
• + (plus) - sounds "KN" ("Over", to only the station addressed)
• - or = (minus or equals) - sound "BT" (Break sign)
• : (colon) - sounds "KA" (Start of signal)
• ; (semicolon) - sounds "AR" (End of transmission)

Operating the Code Audio Controls:

• The "Code Speed" slider sets the overall code speed in words per minute. This will always be correct, regardless of the Farnsworth speed.
• The "Farnsworth Speed" slider sets the character speed . This has no effect unless it is higher than the Code Speed. It's default position (14 wpm) is recommended for learning.
• The "Audio Frequency" slider sets the output audio between 500 and 1000 Hz. Set it to what suits your ears best.
• Two further spin boxes and a check box appear when the Advanced/Toggle Tone option is clicked (top left of menu bar). These are normally hidden to avoid distraction, but they need not be. Clicking the option again hides them.
  • The "Rise/fall time" spin box allows you to vary the rise and fall times of the elements in increments of 1 ms. The default is 5 ms. Adjust if necessary to sit your ears and soundcard. Too small, and the code sounds "clicky", Too large, and the code sounds "woolly".
  • The "Harmonics" spin box allows you to vary the audio waveform shape, and thus the tone. The value sets the number of square-wave harmonics used to synthesize the waveform. The default is "1", which sets the fundamental, plus 1/3 of the 3rd harmonic. "2" adds 1/5 of the 5th harmonic etc. Zero gives a pure sinewave. The default is set at one to make the tone more "penetrating", better in an environment with normal background noise. Zero, however, will better simulate what an HF transceiver produces. This setting may sound different with different sound cards/chips.
  • The "SquareWave" checkbox, when checked, turns whatever waveform has been selected above into a square wave. Effectively, the waveform is passed through a positive/negative limiter. This gives the most penetrating tone.

The Buttons and Checkboxes:

• The "Load Any File" button brings up a file menu, enabling you to load any plain text file on your disk to send for practice. This is not the "normal" option you'll use for practice.
• The "Load Practice Text" button loads the practice text whose number is shown in the "Practice Text Number" box. This is automatically incremented after each load, and can be changed by editing the box. Use this button to load practice material, not the "Load Any File" button!
• The "Send Text" button starts sending whatever text appears in the box. It is disabled while text is being sent.
• The  "pause button" toggles text sending. With care, you can time your click to pause between words, as you would want to do if sending for an on-the-air code practice session. You can't just click after a character has been sent, because the following one will already be in the pipeline. Instead, if necessary, bring up the "Progress" box, which shows the characters that have been sent to the soundcard. Click as soon as the last character in a word appears here. This usually gives the pause in the word-space. When the program is paused, the button caption changes to "Unpause". Click again to resume sending. You can also:
  
• Set how many characters to send before pausing automatically
• Clear the Progress box after a certain number of characters and show just the last number of characters set in the above pause box
  
• Set for how many minutes to send before each pausing automatically
• If a "|" (pipe) character is found in the text being sent the sending will immediately pause.
  
• The "Clear after Pause" checkbox tells the programme to clear the Progress window each time the "UnPause" button is clicked.
  
• The "Abort/Show Text" button stops sending. All text sent so far appears in the box, and the "Send Text" button is enabled again. If the text is sent to completion, this button is enabled automatically.
• The "Record Output" checkbox tell the programme that you want to save the morse tones to a .WAV file.  The recording starts automatically when you click the "Send Text" button and stops when all the text has been sent. You can stop recording at any time by pressing the "Stop Recording" button.
  
• The "Stop Recording" button will stop the recording and allow you to save it to a file.
• The "Help"menu item brings up this help screen.
  
• Close the programme with the "Close" button or with the "X" at top right-hand corner.

Expanded Explanations:

Interactive Teaching Mode:

• Give audio stimulus only: The characters must be learned by sound, not sight, and indexed the right way around. Since everybody has more trouble reading than sending, the "lookup table" that the mind compiles should be ordered with the characters indexed by their sound, not the sound, or pattern indexed by character. For example if you learn from a printed table that

  "C is -.-."

  you have learned to relate a character to a pattern, which has been converted into a sound. To decode, your mind then has to do an ordered search of the table, sounding each pattern in the mind ("is it A? Is it B? Is it C? yes!"). If you learn the characters indexed by sound, your mind becomes quickly programmed to jump straight to the right character, which is much faster. ("dahdidahdit - that's C")

• Make learning paced, and progressive: New information should be introduced at a rate accessible to the student, and only after current information has been sufficiently mastered. Hence, new characters should be introduced one by one at a "comfortable" rate. This means that we must
• Make learning interactive: Feedback from the student should be continuously monitored to pace the teaching process. A taped teaching system cannot do this, and even the best human teachers find it hard.
• Conclusion: Use a computer: A good software algorithm can implement all these features easily. Computers are non-judgemental, infinitely more patient than human teachers, and can keep track of everything. They are thus far better at teaching tasks involving the imprinting of "stimulus and response" skills - providing that a good algorithm is used.

• which characters need to be sent most often,
• when new characters should be introduced,
• a comfortable "response time" for the student.

The Progress Chart:

The number of characters in use is shown for you to monitor. As the session progresses, this will continuously increase.

When the program judges that you're sufficiently familiar with all characters currently in use, it introduces another. You will see changes progressing along the chart reflecting this. Initially, the bars are not labelled with corresponding characters. This is to stop you getting visual clues, which will inhibit your learning. All learning must be audio-based.

If you don't respond to any character (you don't know it yet, or have forgotten) the program waits a decent time, tells you what it was, and sends it again. It adjusts the time it waits by averaging the time you take to respond, so you don't have to be a good typist. In fact your response time has nothing to do with its evaluation of your performance.

Postponed Discrimination Order.

q7zg098o1jpwlram6bxdyckn23fu45vhsite.,?/

Most long, or less common characters are introduced early . This reinforces listening to the whole symbol before deciding what it was. If less common characters are introduced last (as with many teaching systems) you don't get nearly as much practice listening to and decoding them! With Teach, by the time all the symbols have been introduced, you will really know all of those "terrible uncommon letters at the end of the alphabet", as well as all of the numbers.

The four final punctuation symbols are included for completeness, since they are often used on the air. However, they will not appear in the New Zealand test (see the Appendix for test parameters).

Many systems introduce the numbers last . This guarantees that they will give most trouble later. Nobody who learns with this system ever has great difficulty with numbers. (They are actually easier, since they take "longer to go past").

Terminating the Session:

• Your "mastery rating" will be shown. This is related to the number of characters in use, and your average error rate. When this is 100, you know all of the characters well.
• Character labels replace the numbers designating the histogram bars. Thus, you will be able to see which characters are giving you most trouble.

Recommended Learning Procedure:

• You've got to practice regularly ! If you don't, what you've learned will decay exponentially from your mind.
• What you're attempting will become boring. So is filling in your income tax form. But the benefits are worth it.

Start with the interactive teaching mode, even if you think you know all of the characters already. If you do, this will confirm it. If you don't, run completely through it several times. You'll need several sessions to imprint all characters.

If you respond from the keyboard fast, Teach gradually reduces its maximum "waiting" time to match your response time. If you find it's "not waiting long enough", make no keyboard response for a few characters. Teach will increase its waiting time again.

For subsequent sessions, you can advance to the un-learned characters quickly by entering the number of characters active at the close of the last session in the "Characters to Start" box. The early characters will still be used, but new ones will be introduced almost immediately. You should see your "Mastery Rating" increase with every session.

When you can get through all of the characters in a single session, you can start on practice texts. These can either be those that come with the program, or any other plain text files on your disk. Start at (the lowest selectable) overall speed of 3 wpm, which gives about 2 seconds between characters. Send yourself 3 - 4 minute text segments, and make a hard copy on paper. When you miss a character, blot it out of your mind and concentrate on the next one. If you can't resist cheating, clear the "Show Text" checkbox at the top of the screen so that the text is hidden until you've finished (press the "Abort/Show Text" button).

Increase speed when you're getting 60% - 80% correct. You'll probably find that 5 wpm doesn't seem much more difficult than 3 wpm. To make sure of the test, try to get up to 8 - 10 wpm.

Many people find it helpful to regularly listen to a text sent much faster than they can read - say at 20 wpm for a beginner. Just listen, with eyes closed and mind in neutral. You'll find that letters, then words begin to pop out. After some minutes of that, 5 wpm seems a lot easier, since the higher speed has revved up the mind.

This works for me. I still do it.

The rate at which different people learn Morse varies widely. Don't be discouraged by other's apparent ease of skill acquisition, or the comments of well-meaning old-timers, who can no longer remember how boring it was.

If you're serious about using Morse on the air, listen to at least some of the "typical QSO" files (901 to 950). These will help to familiarise you with standard procedures and abbreviations. Not all QSOs follow the exact pattern you'll see, but if you use their format, you can't go wrong.

Some Common Problems, and What you can do about them.

• Copy with your eyes shut.
• Copy while looking out the window.
• Move a piece of paper along behind your copy, covering up what you've written.
• Write with a sharpened meat skewer with carbon paper and another piece of paper underneath the top sheet. You can still check the copy afterwards.

"Rogue Characters." When copying text, you may find that you sometimes miss parts of whole words. This can be because some character appearing near the word start is giving you trouble. Thinking about it, you miss the rest of the word.

Research has shown that different people have different rogue characters, but some common ones are J, W, J, P, Q, and Z. These are all introduced early in the interactive TEACH process for this reason.

Try to identify these characters. Then set up a text consisting of groups of these characters appearing in random order. To do this, click on "Advanced", then "RandomChars", on the top menu bar. A new text box and a button labelled "Generate String" will appear. You'll be told to enter the characters you wish to practise in the box, then to push the button.

This will generate the random groups in the text box, composed of the characters you entered, appearing in random order, but with no more than 2 consecutive characters the same, and with 2 to 5 characters in each group. You can make them invisible to stop yourself cheating by un-checking the "Show Text" box.

Send this string of random characters by clicking the "Send Text" button. Practice copying it a few times, working on just these few characters. You can generate a different group set with the same characters by clicking "Advanced/Randomchars" again - the same set you entered will still be shown in the text box.

Often, just identifying and fixing these rogue characters can make a dramatic difference to your copy accuracy.

This mode is also useful for number copying practice. Enter the string "1234567890" and you'll get a random assortment of numbers, good for practicing for contests or Field day!

What NOT to do!

• Never try to memorise letters using sequences ("eish5"), as this guarantees that you'll form a habit of running through the whole sequence every time "5" is sent.
• Never try to memorise letters using opposites (r and k, a and n etc) as this will confuse them in your mind forever.
• Never use any code practice program that shows you pictures of dits and dahs on the screen. This will re-inforce visual learning, which is counter-productive.

Advanced Capabilities.

• Save Settings: saves the "environment". The following are saved to the text file "Teachini.txt":
• Code Speed,
  
• Farnsworth Speed,
  
• Audio frequency,
  
• next consecutive practice file number,
  
• number of characters in use in character learning mode,
  
• whether the Progress window is displayed
• number of characters specified in the Pause after X Characters
• font name, size, colour and style for the Text and Progress windows
  
• font size for the clock
• status of the Clear After Pause checkbox
• number of characters specified in the Clear after X Characters
  
• whether the clock is visible or not
  
• Load Settings: re-loads the environment, setting the parameters above to their saved values.
• Fast Mode: doubles the code-speed range, enabling speeds between 6 and 40 wpm to be set. This is useful for higher speed practice.
• Slow Mode: re-sets the speed range to 3 to 20, as recommended for initial learning.
• Random Chars: is used to practice copying a few "rogue" characters. You're told how to enter the characters that are giving you trouble, then how to generate a practice text, 64 characters long, containing them in random order. This is often useful for mastering "similar" or "difficult" characters that are tripping you up.
• Dits: is used to send a continuous stream of 200 dits, for calibrating electronic keyers. A string of 10 "@" characters is loaded into the text box. Clicking the "Send Text" button sends them. "@" is a special character, coded as a stream of 20 dits, without a following character space. See the Section "Calibrating Electronic Keyers" in the "Learning to Send" document (click on the link at the start of this document)
• Toggle Tone: Toggles visibility of the tone control spin boxes and the "square wave" checkbox.. These are normally hidden to avoid distraction, but need not be. Clicking the option again hides them.
  • The "Rise/fall time" spin box allows you to vary the rise and fall times of the elements in increments of 1 ms. The default is 5 ms. Adjust if necessary to sit your ears and soundcard. Too small, and the code sounds "clicky", Too large, and the code sounds "woolly".
  • The "Harmonics" spin box allows you to vary the audio waveform shape, and thus the tone. The value sets the number of square-wave harmonics used to synthesize the waveform. The default is "1", which sets the fundamental, plus 1/3 of the 3rd harmonic. "2" adds 1/5 of the 5th harmonic etc. Zero gives a pure sinewave. The default is set at one to make the tone more "penetrating", better in an environment with normal background noise. Zero, however, will better simulate what an HF transceiver produces. This setting may sound different with different sound cards/chips.
  • The "SquareWave" checkbox, when checked, turns whatever waveform has been selected above into a square wave. Effectively, the waveform is passed through a positive/negative limiter. This gives the most penetrating tone.
• Toggle Uppercase: Toggles between uppercase and lowercase character presentation in the initial teaching module. Uppercase characters may be preferable for very young learners who will search for a "visual match" between the character displayed and that presented on the key-caps. Or you may just prefer them.
• Teaching Strings: This allows you to choose a teacking string other than Howard Cunningham's.  Additional options are the traditional Koch string and a standard alpha/numeric string.
• Reset Saved settings: If your settings have been messed up, this option will delete the previously saved settings so that you can start again from the default settings.
  

The Notepad: Keeping track of Progress.

Clicking on "Notepad" in the top menu bar brings up a note-pad in which you can write and edit notes. This can be moved around and re-sized. Everything you've written can be saved by clicking the "Save Notepad" button. After saving, the notes you've made will re-appear when you open it later. Close the notepad with the "Close" button or the upper right-hand "X" as usual.

A Comment on Code Speed.

A considerable body of psychological research shows that below this speed (the "transition speed") characters are heard as "individual sounds". Above this speed, they begin to be heard as "words". Hearing them this way from the beginning eliminates the infamous "plateau" that many have experienced going through the "transition speed barrier"

"Farnsworth Morse" (see the following appendix) means that individual characters are always sent at or above the "transition speed", but longer spaces are used between characters to decrease the overall rate to the "overall speed".

Appendices: Historical Note: Definitions and Formal Pass Requirements for the previous ZL Morse Tests, which is no longer required:

A1.1 Morse speed:

"Farnsworth speed" is the speed at which characters are sent, which is always faster than the overall speed. ZL Morse tests are sent using the standard ARRL algorithm, where character and word spaces are adjusted so that

• The overall speed remains at 5 wpm. That is, exactly 5 repetitions of the standard word PARIS, with accompanying spaces, are sent in one minute.

• Character and word spaces are proportioned so that their ratio remains at 3:7, as for "correctly ratioed" morse.

A1.2 The ZL Morse Tests:

Note to Overseas Users: These parameters applied only to the ZL tests! Yours may differ regarding the test procedures, the text sent, number of errors permitted. Check with your local authorities!

A1.2.1 The ZL Receiving Test:

1. The candidate is required to make a hard copy of a 3-minute plain-language Morse text sent at an overall speed of 5 words-per-minute.
2. The text will contain letters and 7 numbers, but no punctuation, callsigns or amateur radio abbreviations.
3. Morse text from a computer-generated source is preferred.
4. If testing facilities permit, the candidate may choose the audio frequency and the Farnsworth speed.
5. The candidate will be allowed at least one practice run to enable adjustment of signal volume and frequency to a comfortable level. If this practise meets the requirements it can be used as a test paper.
6. The test may be copied using pen, pencil, typewriter, or word-processing software (the last two options are for candidates with disabilities that preclude writing normally). Code-reading devices or code-reading software are not permitted.
7. The candidate may copy using a loudspeaker, headphones, or flashing light (this option is for candidates with hearing difficulties). Candidates should be expected to tolerate a low level of ambient noise during the test.
8. The candidate will have 30 seconds for correcting the copy at the conclusion of the test.
9. A maximum of 4 errors is permitted.
10. If the candidate's writing cannot be read by the testers, or altered characters are unclear, any text will be deemed correct if it can be correctly read back by the candidate.
11. Five test runs can be permitted at the discretion of the testers.
12. Where there is a repeat test, it must be from text that has not been sent to the candidate on any previous occasion.
13. The hard copy written or typed test should be retained by the examiner for audit purposes.

A1.2.2 The ZL Sending Test:

1. A standard straight key with a suitable audio oscillator will be provided by the testers. Candidates are required to provide any other device with which they choose to send.
2. A candidate may use any sending device except Morse keyboard hardware or software. "Pump-action" straight keys, bugs and electronic keyers are all acceptable.
3. The candidate is required to send a plain language text to the testing officer's satisfaction.
4. A pass will be awarded on the basis of the testers' evaluation of the Morse sent by the candidate. The Morse need not be "perfect" so long as the testers can read it. A realistic judgement is to ask: "If this Morse was heard on an Amateur band, would it be understood by an experienced operator?"
5. The sending test duration is at the discretion of the testers, but must not exceed 3 minutes. The test can be terminated early if the testers are confident that a candidate can send acceptable Morse.
6. Five attempts at the sending test may be made at the discretion of the testers if the candidate presents simple faults (such as letters or words run together) that can be easily corrected on subsequent attempts.

Learning to Send:

Learning to send

Bug Reports:

Authors:

The right to distribute executable copies of this code for teaching purposes is assigned to the NZART. The NZART prohibits the posting of the distribution file on other websites, or the inclusion of the distribution file on any media offered for sale, or as part of material distributed with such media, by anybody. The authors reserve their intellectual rights to the source code.

May 2021