Hi everyone,
I’m happy to announce that the Morse Machine app is available from the Google Store.
It can be found here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.iu4apc.morsemachine
What’s the Morse Machine app?
This program teaches you to receive Morse code (CW).
It starts with two letters and adds more when it sees that you are ready. This is the easiest way to learn code because the computer thinks about the practice you need next instead of wasting your time with stuff you already know or confusing you with stuff that you don’t.
The original idea comes from Ward K9OX (http://c2.com/morse/).
The app uses the Koch method letter sequence and starts with the first two letters: K and M.
For Each letter you have a column showing how high is your error score. It starts from 100 and lowers as you start guessing letters right and increases when you are wrong or you take too much time to recognize it.
SETTINGS
WPM (Words Per Minute): let you set the speed of the CW playing. The suggested speed is 20. The minimum is 15. You should choose a speed that does help you focus on the sound of each letter and not on the dits and dahs.
CW TONE: choose a tone frequency that suits your ears. Default is 700Hz
LESSON: sets the lesson level. By default you start with lesson 1 (2 letters) and as you get confident with them new ones are addedd.
MINIMUM LEVEL: sets the minimum average error level before adding a new letter.
RESET SETTINGS: resets the error level of each letter back to 100%.
Any feedback and suggestion is more than welcome!
72/73, Andrea IU4APC
KX3 Companion 
Hi Andrea,
Kudos on the trainer!
Being able to decode CW by ear is almost a necesity since even the best computer based (and KX3) devices seem to do a poor job when the signal fades in and out or there is any other number of other things going on.
It looks like you allow some recognition time inbetween letters but it might be helpful to have a Farnsworth interletter spaceing adjustment so a person could have a little longet to hit the right key on the keyboard.
Half the problem for me is my keyboarding skills are shakey at best
I have been using 25 wpm characters and about 10 wpm spacing using the G4FON trainer when trying to keyboard… a little faster writing it down by hand…..
Just a thought.
John KB0NE
Ciao John,
the method allows for any time between the letters. After a few seconds without guessing right it, it repeats the letter and gives an hint.
But the faster one recognized the letter, the more is taken off the histogram.
It’s a quite peculiar approach to CW learning and for my experience (and not only mine) it works better than other methods.
You can read the May 1977 QST article describing it, here: http://c2.com/morse/wiki.cgi?QstArticle
So typing on the keyboard surely slows down compared to writing down on paper, but I’m personally able to have an average of 8-10 WPM with the app.
Thanks for suggestions ayway 😉
72/73, Andrea IU4APC
After downloading and using the app for a while I found the following…
There seems to be a bit of key click associated with the tone turning off and on. Don’t know if that is treatable or not. I had set the tone to 440hz (middle A don’t you know).
When I adjust the tone the app appears to either slow way down (wpm) or perhaps it isn’t recognising the onscreen keyboard input. Haven’t tried the USB keyboard yet but would rather like to use that since it is full sized. I’ll report back if this has problems.
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My reported overall speed is around 7.5 wpm…. so this may have a dual learning effect: I get much better at keyboarding, hopefully, and CW.
Best 73s
Ciao John,
Yes I noticed the click and already worked on reducing it. I hope to remove it completely with the next version.
Thank for reporting the bug about WPM slowing down. I’ll try to understand what’s the problem with it as well.
The app actually doesn’t support physical keyboard but I already have the update ready with physical (USB/Bluetooth) keyboard support ready. I should release it in a couple of days max. I want to solve the above issues and add another thing I have in mind 🙂
Thanks a lot for the report and support. You’re precious as always!
72/73 Andrea IU4APC
Any plans for an iOS version?
Thinking about it but most likely it’ll be ported to iOS.
I’ll keep you updated via the blog.
Thanks for your interest.
72/73 Andrea IU4APC