Ham Radio Solutions CW Hotline Device and Websites

 

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Not too long ago I was listening to an episode of the Ham Radio Crash Course podcast where Ham Radio Solution's CW Hotline was mentioned. The device sounded interesting to me, so I decided to look it up, and I'm glad that I did! I've found a community of CW / Morse code learners & enthusiasts who can participate in internet chatroom QSO's in the VBand Virtual CW Band site with just a smartphone’s touchscreen, a computer keyboard or an adapter that can be connected to an actual Morse key / paddle / bug, etc. Owners of CW Hotline devices can also engage in private QSO's with other CW Hotline owners using individually created keys / passwords which are only shared with others whom they want to communicate with.

Useful Morse Code Practice Sites

 

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Learn CW Online

This site will allow you to paste a limited amount of text from anywhere into a text box and then play it back in CW at whatever speed and tone you set up. I used this site a lot back in 2013 when I first thought about getting back into amateur radio after a 20+ year hiatus. It has a lot of cool features and can really help with building your speed and getting an idea of where you stand currently with your copying ability. You can find my profile here: https://lcwo.net/profile/Skunkroot

https://lcwo.net/

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Morse Code News 4.4

Morse News periodically reads one or more RSS/Atom (news) and/or Twitter timelines/direct messages then translates the received messages into precisely timed International (radio) or American (railroad) Morse code. The Morse code can be played as CW radio tones, old-fashioned spark-gap sounds, telegraph sounder click/clack sounds, or to a physical telegraph sounder connected to a serial port. Split speeds are supported for Farnsworth effects. American code generation includes timing nuances that make it sound natural. The CW and spark-gap sounds can optionally be enhanced with realistic noise, static crashes, and ionospheric-style Raleigh fading.

Version 4.4 adds TLS 1.2 encryption for RSS, expanded info on RSS feeds, plus new and revised default feeds. V4.3 Added TLS 1.2 for Twitter. Version 4.2 is a major update, please see the release notes in the help page for the many changes and new features .Version 4.1 adds Twitter direct message support to Morse News, inspired by Garry Tidler WW9GT. Version 4.0 has many new features including low-latency ASIO sound support, inspired by Chuck Vaughan AA0HW for crisp keying at QRQ speeds, all new handling of feeds with a feed connectivity and content checker.

http://morse-rss-news.sourceforge.net/

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I found this site today because my favorite CW app (Ham Morse) seems to have gone offline. I was looking for another place to get Morse news headlines. At first glance, it looks like this is actually a group of live-stream links that are constantly streaming CW headlines at different speeds. Nice resource for practice there. It looks like this is a site that is affiliated with FISTs somehow? But I'm not sure.

http://cw.dimebank.com:8080/

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