Just thought of a great way to practice random CW to build head copy skills.
I Copied a part of the latest Spots on SW3 page and pasted it into Just Learn Morse Code software and set it running at 28 wpm. Its a great way to lay back in the chair don’t look at the PC screen and head copy trusting your instincts on what you heard.
Have fun Regards.
Ian vk5cz …
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Morserunner (community edition) and RufzXP are two great programs to learn copying callsigns. You can customise then with a callsign list of SOTA ops & chasers. Such a list does exist for VK-port-a-log.
73, Martin, PE1EEC
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Yup. I’m currently (slowly, eventually) making a list of the 2023 top 100 US & CW only SOTA chasers. Eventually I’ll upload it to Morserunner. I know Tim @N7KOM just made a list of the top 500 POTA chasers for Morserunner. He made a video showing how to add the custom list here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJbsd2hoH_w
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See ON6ZQ | SOTA Participants data files for the full list of SOTA participants. There are instructions with how to install in Morse Runner on the page. It contains 74000+ callsigns. You might even work me, hi.
73 Martin, PE1EEC
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How do you use the morse runner now in contest mode or you use in contest mode but with SOTA call signs?
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Morse code ninja has call signs and us only call signs at any speed you want
Plus a LOT more like sentences
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All good but the program I suggested is good for folks who might like to have a rag chew conversation in CW as I have done for 35 years. Swapping SOTA refs and DX signal reports is easy stuff really most of us just learn to swap an RST as we have seen the current activator and his summit on our choice of device hooked to the internet. Bit sad here, as I learnt CW when I was 26 now I am 70 and running out of my older peers whom I could chat with on CW.
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I’ll have to look at this software. Eventually I’d like to get to “rag chew” level. Your initial post simply noted “spots” and it was posted on a “SOTA” forum, so I feel most folks likely thought you were simply referencing call sign recognition and the like, as as opposed to rag-chewing, myself included. Thanks.
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Sorry for any confusion I paste and copy bits of the Spots page to get that random content to send in the software to try to up skill my head copy. Its a handy source of renewed data rolling by 24/7 for practice. It not only has numbers and letters it has some punctuation as well. Just trying to encourage folks to go that bit further in CW rather than just rubber stamp QSO or number swaps for this type of activity.
Regards.
Ian vk5cz …
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Even 77.000+ in today’s update 
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Well let’s not forget that a lot of CW-ops in SOTA are beginners. When someone asks me how to get over keyfright, I suggest to start chasing SOTA/WWFF etc as the exchange is simple. I suppose that once they are over the keyfright they will extend their operating to rubberstamp QSO’s and then ragchewing. It just takes time to get there. After 2 years of operating more and more, I am at the point of where I’m fairly comfortable in rubberstamp QSO’s and slowly want to move into ragchewing.
But back to the topic, to improve the copying skill for SOTA, programs like Morserunner are a good tool for new SOTA-chasers and activators. And you learn to recognise the familiar chasers as well when you meet them on-air.
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Agreed about chasing being good practice for beginners like me. Structured contacts contribute to overcome key fright.
I must add something: while I strive to improve my poor CW skills, I don’t have any interest in ragchewing, I have the same feelings towards voice modes, it’s one of the many facets of our activity that I don’t enjoy right now.
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Nothing beats getting on the air for improving your CW.
Ed W1EJ
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I recommend ebook2cw . This allows converting any plain text ebook to cw. Includes some good options such as splitting the book into fixed time length sections.
Currently reading The Hobbit in CW.
After a year of practice I am comfortable reading The Hobbit at 25wpm, and am practicing with the W1AW files at 30wpm.
On air at home i find 23wpm works best for ragchews. But my ability to head copy callsigns is very poor by comparison, and suffers even more when on a hill
Am using Ditto CW to improve callsign head copy, but its difficult, my mind seems to have a buffer size of four characters . I just can’t seem to hold a six character callsign without forgetting the first two characters
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Both excellent - good medicine, but I feel like I’m taking a test when using them. Oddly, I feel more stressed doing simulated QSOs in Morserunner than handling a real pile-up on a SOTA summit.
That’s true but most of us have some dead time in the day when we can’t be in the shack or up on the hills which can be used anywhere to hone our Morse skills.
[Until I switched to Ditto CW] I previously used ebook2cw (on Windows PC) to include my custom (fake but realistic) SOTA exchanges. It’s very flexible.
That’s excellent given your newness to Morse. Is that writing to paper or head-copying? I cannot sustain writing at 20+wpm for long without my writing hand aching (maybe two pages of A4). I learnt to head-copy from scratch during the first two covid lockdowns but after getting to ~18wpm I realised I wasn’t going to use it much for SOTA.
After you recommended Ditto CW a while ago I re-purposed an old Android phone as my Morse trainer using Ditto CW. It’s less trouble and more convenient to transfer custom text to Ditto CW on a phone than custom text to ebook2CW running on a PC.
As the HF noise has worsened in my shack in recent years I’m doing fewer ragchews at home. As ~95% of my CW ops are SOTA, I’ve focused my Ditto CW efforts on increasing my speed for callsigns and SOTA summit refs.
That’s not surprising, unfamiliar callsigns are almost pseudo random. I’m always transcripting callsigns & summit refs for my SOTA log so I never bother to headcopy them [although my subconscious headcopies familiar callsigns anyway].
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We used encrypted callsigns in the 1960s & 1970s. (Random 4 fig combinations of Ltrs & numbers.). We all wrote them down and I still write callsigns down now. What’s the point of trying to remember something like a ham callsigns when accuracy is important?? You don’t get any extra points - do you?
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[quote=“G8CPZ, post:16, topic:33063, full:true”]
Its head copy…quite fun when you can read a book in cw. For copying at 30wpm i have had the occasional session where i completely forget i am listening to morse, its rather spooky when that happens.
I can only manage around 23wpm reliablly for real copy, machine generated morse is much easier!
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A practically relevant example are the callsigns of your frequent spotters - I cannot really headcopy CW (but wish I could), but the callsigns of ca. 10-30 of my frequent chasers and RST reports I can memorize when heard with ease. This means that my brain only needs to remember one token (like “Mariusz, @sp9amh”) instead of four to six characters (S-P-9-A-M-H). This drastically reduces mental load and hence stress, in particular in bad weather, while fixing minor issues with the equipment, etc.
And in really tough situations you may be able
to qualify a summit with minimal logging with frozen fingers or in bad QRM just by picking five from your frequent chasers from the pile-up.
73 de Martin, DK3IT
PS: I think being able to rag-chew in CW is really cool. Just please don’t do it when chasing an activator on a rare alpine peak 
.
And I guess a downside of growing CW skills is that one day you’ll find yourself sitting in a worn-out train wondering what the aliens are trying to tell you via the rattling restroom doors .
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You are right I keep the life story to a minimum chasing or activating SOTA. Its good fun to rag chew on CW I drove over 100km one time chatting to a fella on 40m CW. Being able to head copy made it easy to do at the time. If someone does get off topic when you are activating or chasing SOTA at least you have a better chance knowing what they are asking you or saying.
Regards
Ian vk5cz …
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