Note: In the official CWOPS Beginner Book, session 2 covers the letters I, O, S and the numbers 1 and 4. With more letters, we can make more interesting words.
It’s divided into copying segments: T, E, A, N, I, O, S, 1, 4 (five times each)
TON, TIN, TIE, TOE, NO, NOT, NOTE, IT, AT, ONE, NEAT, NET, NIT, TOES, STONE, TEASE, NOISE, ONE NEAT NOTE, NO NOISE, TIE IT, 1 TON STONE
N1AS, N4ON, S41T, NO1S, AI1E, IT4O, EA1ON, ES4IT
And sending segments: STONE, TIN, TIE, NO, NOT, IT, 6, AT, N1AS, N4ON, S41T, NO1S, AI1E, IT4O, EA1ON, ES4IT, 1 TON STONE, 14 NOTES, TEN TOES
Welcome, Session 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
For the bonus homework, be prepared to send two groups from the “Sending Segments” and two words of your choice from the letters we’ve learned. The “sending segments” will be a warm-up as we go around. (Don’t worry about duplicating someone else.)
(Note to self: Using the sending segments as a warm-up was something I should have done for sessions 1 & 2)
Session 3 will let you hear the timing differences between the E (one dih), I (two), S (three) and now H (four) and 5 (… five). It’s pretty eahy to throw in an extra dot and hend H when you meant S
This post below comes from Joe (AA8TA), one of the long-time advisors, on why CWA insists on paddles versus straight keys.
Please allow me to advance my perhaps heretical thoughts about non-paddle keying; this is what I tell my beginner students and others who ask why we do not want students to use straight keys.
Think about how a baby or toddler learns to talk. If they have a hearing issue, they will have difficulty learning to speak properly, otherwise, they have to listen for a long time to a parent in order to learn how speech should sound. In a similar way, let’s put a person who does not know Morse code in front of a key and ask them to send their name. Probably is not going to sound very nice.
A paddle/keyer combination allows one to form characters with nearly perfect dit/dah weighting. As they listen to a lot of Morse code from our practice sessions and send Morse code that is properly formed, they will get the idea of how to form characters planted firmly in their minds.
Later on, if they want to send on straight keys or bugs, they know what a well-formed character sounds like so they are more likely to send well. From my own experience, I jump into SKCC events when I can and think that I can send well-formed characters on a straight key because I know what they should sound like. The Reverse Beacon Network seems to agree.
Once a person learns what well-sent Morse code sounds like, I think they should enjoy whatever CW events they can find. If a Slow Speed Vertical Key event sounds like fun, do it!
I would discourage students from doing that kind of stuff while in a beginner class (maybe basic class, too), though, until they learn what well-formed characters are supposed to sound like. We don’t expect toddlers to enter advanced oration events while they are still learning to speak properly. Same idea.
Have fun!
Joe AA8TA
The “Reverse Beacon Network” (RBN) is a network of sites (radios with computers) that decode Morse code call signs they hear and send “spots” to a distributed network. It’s useful for seeing who is on the band, patterns of stations being on (think someone very far away for DX) and how well your signal is getting out. There are other services like hamalert.org that will email you when a certain criteria of station is met. For example, I occasionally look at how well I’m getting out on CW on 20m:
