ARRL Straight Key Night will be January 1, 2025, from 0000 UTC through 2359 UTC. This 24-hour event is not a contest but rather a day dedicated to celebrating our CW heritage.

Participants are encouraged to get on the air and simply make enjoyable, conversational CW QSOs. The use of straight keys or bugs to send CW is preferred. There are no points scored and all who participate are winners. All authorized amateur frequencies may be used but activity has traditionally been centered on the HF bands.

Entries for Straight Key Night must be received by January 3, 2025. Votes for “Best Fist” and “Most Interesting QSO” will be tabulated and included in the results. Send your information to straightkey@arrl.org or by mail to ARRL Straight Key Night, 225 Main Street, Newington, Connecticut 06111. For more information, contact contests@arrl.org or (860) 594-0232.

Find more information at www.arrl.org/straight-key-night

At the world Morse Code championships in Tunisia, competitors must battle to be the fastest and most accurate at sending and receiving Morse code.

🔗 Read the full description and listen at the BBC World Service.

There’s a good article in the July/August 2024 [issue] of On the Air, ARRL’s magazine geared toward new hams, that offers advice on learning the Morse Code.

I’m all for this. I love Morse Code, and it’s still a useful (and fun!) skill that all hams should have at least a minimal working knowledge of an appreciation for. ¹

The author, TJ Johnson (K9KJ), offers a straightforward (and exactly correct) approach for learning the Code:

1. Learn the characters.
2. Add complexity.
3. Increase speed.

He also includes this extremely valuable advice:

• Use Farnsworth spacing.
• Learn the sounds of the characters, not the “dots and dashes”

And this is where things get dicey.

The article is accompanied by this visualization of the letters and numbers:

I’m assuming that this is an editorial choice on the part of the publisher and not the doing of the Mr Johnson, since he actually goes out of his way to advise readers NOT to think about the “dots and dashes.” Unfortunately, it will likely reinforce in some people’s minds that they should make a visual connection between what they here and what it means. This is highly detrimental to learning any language, not just Morse Code.

While it’s a tempting artistic device, the dots and dashes really are not useful to learning the Code. We need to let go of them altogether. ²

In an era before instantaneous global communication, the telegraph allowed President Franklin Roosevelt to receive vital information and conduct critical government business while away from the White House. This portable telegraph and vibroplex key were used by Dr. E. Stuart Davis, communications aide and personnal telegrapher during President Roosevelt’s travels. ¹

The portable telegraph and Vibroplex key used by Dr. Davis are part of a display of presidential memorabilia in The Hall of Presidents at Walt Disney World.

Are you looking for something different to do using morse code beyond rag chewing or logging DXCC contacts?

Try combining two hobbies by playing chess over CW.

Radio and chess share a colorful history. When the USA and Russia were butting heads immediately after World War II, the two countries viewed chess as a field of struggle between communism and capitalism. With the tension between the countries, there was no way for players from the countries to get together and play. Instead, a radio match between the two was arranged in [ 1 ]

A guest post on KB6NU’s Ham Radio Blog, by Gary WA0ZSU, discusses the history of CW Chess, presents some tips on how to play chess and the air and finding games.

Footnotes

[ 1 ] “How to play chess on CW”, KB6NU’s Ham Radio Blog, retrieved July 12 2017, http://www.kb6nu.com/play-chess-cw/.

All 89 issues of the English-language version of Morsum Magnificat, the Morse Magazine, are now available for free download courtesy of Lynn Burlingame, N7CFO; Mike Feher, N4FS; and Randy Cole, KN6W.

MORSUM MAGNIFICAT was first published as a quarterly magazine in Holland. in 1983. by the late Rinus Hellemons PAOBFN. It has been produced four, then six times a year in Britain since 1986, and up to January 1999 was published and edited by Tony Smith, G4FAI and Geoff Arnold, G3GSR. It aims to provide intemational coverage of all aspects of Morse telegraphy, past present and future. MORSUM MAGNIFICAT is for all Morse enthusiasts, amateur or professional, active or retired. It brings together material which would otherwise be lost to posterity, providing an invaluable source of interest, reference and record relating to the traditions and practice of Morse [ 1 ]

“All copies of Morsum Magnificat or associated publications downloaded from the N7CFO website are for personal use only and may not be downloaded or distributed for any commercial purpose.” [ 2 ]

Missing Issues of Morsum Magnificat Now Available for Free Download https://t.co/VMLQ8B4KdK #ARRL #HamRadio pic.twitter.com/TUuaa9qrVR

— ARRL (@arrl) May 18, 2017

Footnotes

[ 1 ] Zyg Nilski G3OKD, “Morsum Magnificat, Number 89—March 2004”, N7CFO.COM, retrieved May 19 2017, http://www.n7cfo.com/tgph/Dwnlds/mm/MMs/MM89.pdf.

[ 2 ] “Missing Issues of Morsum Magnificat Now Available for Free Download”, ARRL The national association for Amateur Radio, last modified May 18 2017, http://www.arrl.org/news/missing-issues-of-morsum-magnificat-now-available-for-free-download.