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which key should you use ? Well this is of course a personal choice, but are some keys better for a new op than others? Reading around the forums i was stumbling across quite a few people stating that in their opinion starting off with a paddle was the way to go. At first i thought this was bad advice and personally thought the straight key was the "proper" way to learn.Maybe this was because many people including myself see a morse code op as someone sitting pumping away on what's normally illustrated as a straight key.Now i'm 2 years into my morse and have learnt a lot on the way ,not only about operating the key but also it's history and about the different type of "fists" on the air from actually using the code.Has my opinion of those ops views on reccommending paddles/single levers to new ops changed ? Yes, and ill explain why.PLEASE NOTE This is only my personal view and findings from actually using cw as my main mode for the last 2 years. i don't claim to be a master at morse code , in fact i'm presently at around the 15 wpm range but hope and suspect my sending is clean and clear.
so what's being sent on the bands?
Listen around the bands and it's quite evident many people simply can't sent clear morse characters on a straight key. Sometimes i'v literally just tuned away from a responce to a cq call because i couldn't fathom out what was being sent, sloppy characters that little resembled what i had spent hours trying to learn with little or no spacing and what was a constant string of poorly sent characters. Now there could be a whole load of reasons why someone may not be sending the clearest of morse, sometimes it's just plain bad fists ,other times it may be they are trying to go too fast or some other reason. The point being there's a lot of very sloppy sending on the bands. One suspision i have for people who are sending quite fast but poorly is they are recieving the morse via a de coder so never get to know what a character should feel like as well as sound like . Yes you do get a feel for what a particular character feels like when using a straight key.
why i think a paddle is a good idea for learners
Firstly you don't have to be able to send at super sonic speeds to use a paddle , nor do you have to use a twin lever iambic. Many people including myself use twin levers but basically like a single lever. That is simply using one side for dits and one side for dahs without iambic action. The advantage for a beginner using a paddle whether it be twin lever or single is that the characters are sent correctly and if running a string of dits or dahs will be automatically sent with the correct spacing regardless of what the internal keyer on the radio is set at. Example if your internal keyer is set for 12wpm holding the dah paddle will automatically send a string of dahs with the correct spacing untill it's released so for example sending the letter O would simply require the op to hold the dah paddle for a duration of 3 dahs and they would of sent a perfectly spaced letter O.Most experts agree that the Farnsworth method (and this is also my view) is the best way to learn code at a given speed. With the Farnsworth method individual characters are sent at the target speed, but extra space is sent between characters and words to slow the rate at which you have to translate. As you improve the extra space is decreased. This way you learn from the beginning how each character sounds at the target rate. Translation becomes more of a reflex.
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