CW Communicator

[MI0PYN]

I've heard a few times recently about a tool which allows Morse code communication without a radio, with operators globally.
This is CW Communicator or cwcom, written a long time ago by John W. Samin, VK1EME for Windows 95.

It does still work on Windows 10 though, and although the original author doesn't appear to support it anymore, a blogger who goes by the name of MorseMan has documented it's use at https://morsepower.blogspot.com/2016/08/cwcom-program-to-communicate-using.html

It allows you to send using either the down arrow key on your keyboard, a mouse button or an actual key using a USB to serial adapter, wired through to a socket for your key lead.

I've not played with it a whole lot, but seems like a good option if you are being tutored by someone who you can't reach on the air. I'm going to have a play with it and see how useful it is, but it looks like it has potential.

 

[foggycoder]

See my post "Morse over the Internet: CWCOM" in the Rigs, Antennas & On the Air section of this forum.
I put it there because, whilst CWCOM can be very useful if you're learning, it's just very pleasant to use one's morse to chat with other operators.

You certainly need to chew through hundreds and thousands of random code groups to learn the basic characters and prosigns. But once you've done that, it's time to put that learning to use. And the sooner, the better. CWCOM makes a great bridge between practising on your own and QSO's on the air. And I've found that it's good to chat away online even after you're having contacts over the air waves.

Don't feel embarrassed about using the on-screen decode. There's a lot of nonsense talked about "decoder dependency" by guys who can fly along at 25 or 30 wpm. When you're learning and struggling to make sense of it all, reliable on-screen decode can make the difference between enjoyable early experiences and ugly humiliating reminders of how much further one has to go.

Yesterday I had a QSO with a guy in China. He couldn't understand a word of English but was copy-and-pasting everything from the screen into Google Translate. It worked absolutely fine. Same with a guy in Germany a week or so ago.

You might be surprised to find out just how slow and error prone some guys are on CWCOM. But nobody minds. Even the experienced guys recognise that everyone has to start somewhere.

So morse-over-the-internet, and CWCOM in particular, is a great learning resource but very rewarding in its own right too.