Morserino-32

[foggycoder]

I'd like to make a "Shout Out" for the Morserino-32.

It's a little expensive and require some very simple soldering. But it's a Swiss Army Knife for learning Morse Code:

• It has the Koch lessons and the Echo feature, both of which are very popular.
• It's also a morse decoder - connect it to your PC and understand what those guys on the webSDRs are sending!
• You can use it to generate the required input for iCW (a morse-over-the-internet application).
• It will act as an electronic morse keyer too. In an act of double-paddle madness, I decided to use Ultimatic mode (instead of the far more common Iambic B). The Morserino implements this mode very well.

The list of functions just goes on - look it up if you want to see them all. You do get a lot for your money.

 

[MI0PYN]

Looks like an interesting device, and at €80 not too badly priced.

Have you tried using the capacitive paddles?

 

[foggycoder]

Yes, I have tried them. They're very good actually. And none of that clickety-clack you get from mechanical paddles.

Needless to say, the Morserino has several options for configuring the paddles in software (if you want to mess with them that is).

I'm right-handed and I have my paddles pointing across my body, to my right. This means the Morserino screen is on its side. But that's a small disadvantage and has nothing to do with the paddles themselves.

 

[Ham4CW]

Looks an interesting item. It's a pity there are no sellers in the UK, unless I've missed them while searching...

 

[foggycoder]

MORSERINO ELECTRICS

The Morserino comes with a Molex connector for your battery. My battery had some sort of JST connector. The assembly instructions contain several warnings not to get the polarity wrong as the Heltec module (strangely) does not have reverse polarity protection. Guess what - in making an adapter from Molex to JST, I managed to connect up the battery with the polarity incorrect. DERRR. So my Heltec module will not now charge a li-po (all other functionality survived). No worries - I bought a couple of 600 mAh li-po batteries that came with Molex connectors and a USB battery charger.

One 600 mAh battery will last quite a long time. The advantage of having two (they're cheap as chips) is that if one goes flat, you simply connect to the other battery. They fit side-by-side under the back cover, held in place by some non-slip mat.

 

[foggycoder]

MORSERINO FIRMWARE UPDATE

My Morserino came with version 2.x firmware, which has been fine.

Recently, following a bunch of woes trying to connect to CQ100, I decided to update my firmware to the latest 3.x version in order to eliminate any possible glitches with the Morserino.

I followed the instructions for updating over wi-fi (which are a little involved so you need to pay attention). You first download the new firmware file to your computer, and then transfer that file to the Morserino over wi-fi where it auto-installs.

The firmware file comes from Github. I'm not familiar Github and managed to get the wrong file off there initially. You want a file called morse_3_v3.0.ino.wifi_lora_32_V2.bin or something like that. It should be a fairly large file of around 1068 KB.

Once I had the correct file on my computer, it all went without a hitch first time round.

 

[foggycoder]

MORSERINO WI-FI TRANSCEIVER

A new feature with firmware version 3.x. You can have a Morserino-to-Morserino QSO with anyone over wi-fi by exchanging IP addresses. You can use any wi-fi connection (including mobile phone hotspots for portable/mobile ops!).

This video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J9MFiBCXNw
describes the set-up and connection processes very clearly.

I tried it myself using my home wi-fi and it all worked perfectly first time (unlike the guy in the video, who was using a mobile phone hotspot). I checked that it was all functioning correctly by sending a ping to Willi's server and got an immediate ping back. I also heard a guy trying to contact another operator (my view is that that's like blocking the calling channel - they should just contact each other directly).

If anyone would like to give it a go, send me a PM to arrange.