Which amounts to $388 AUD, and I hadn’t even purchased the equipment. $70 – Advanced Theory Exam (because I got sick of not being able to use 160 m or 6 m after a couple months when that’s where most of my experiments are to be done) For example, when I got my licence (all in AUD): It can be done cheaply, but not without certain caveats that I found restrictive. Just a thought regarding costs… here in Australia (VK) the initial set up costs are rather expensive. If you can find a local ham or two to coach you through the process, so much the better, but any way you do it, the important thing is to put in consistent daily practice, sustained over time. I encourage anyone so inclined to learn Morse. For some early practice sessions, some of us used 2m FM voice via a repeater to talk about things when our CW communications skills were insufficient, but we fairly quickly lost the need for voice backup. We weren’t quite within good FM range, and everyone in our group who was learning code was doing so with the goal of getting on HF, Everyone managed to scrape up some sort of 40m CW rig, even if it was only a 5W QRP rig into a simple wire antenna. But we eventually dropped the FM idea and got together for scheduled practice on 40m, using conventional CW. My local ham radio club had a group of Morse Code learners, and we tossed around the idea of using 2 meter FM for scheduled code practice sessions. It’s a simple kit to solder together in an evening. I have no affiliation, except as a customer. It’s available from HamGadgets, which his easy enough to find via your favorite search engine. Just hit your key to start sending, and stop manipulating the key to have the radio switch to receive mode. It will automatically hold the PTT closed while you’re sending letters, and for a little while afterwards, saving you the trouble of flipping a switch to go between transmit and receive modes. It has a mode where you can feed its key closure output to the PTT input of a radio, and feed the keyer’s audio into the radio’s microphone input. The Ultra PicoKeyer kit does this kind of thing well (as well as being a fine general-purpose memory keyer). Posted in Radio Hacks Tagged baofeng, morse code Post navigation Morse code can be a trial to learn, but spare a thought for the folks who had to pick it up back in 1939. Morse code has always been appreciated in situations where voice transmission is difficult due to low bandwidth or interference, and now it’s easy for new hams to give it a try. It’s a little different from the more typical constant-wave transmission methods that are so seldom used nowadays, but it gets the job done. A toggle switch is wired up to the Push-To-Transmit circuit of the Baofeng to trigger transmission when required. This audio is passed into the headset port of a Baofeng handheld transmitter. A Morse code training unit generates tones in response to input from a Morse keyer. Not to worry though, you can do that with a handheld, too! Of course, a major part of the amateur radio scene used to be Morse code. Powerful and capable UHF and VHF handheld transceivers can now be had for well under $100, something unimaginable as recently as 20 years ago. Both grizzled hams and potential future amateur radio operators are well-served by the market these days.
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