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I have been studying on this site for a little over 4 months. I recently received my QRP Labs QCX-Mini that I ordered back in November (I ordered it assembled). Until now, I have been using a simple QRP Guys keyer and a Bencher paddle. Today I hooked up the the QXX-Mini in practice mode to see how my sending was going. I find that the timing between the letters is very difficult, for me, to get right. Anything but a 100% smooth transition from one letter to the next leads to a space in the middle of the word or even between each letter. I understand that only one day might not be enough time to get the timing right but I ask because I read on this forum that you shouldn't use a decoder. I figured that the decoder would give me feedback on my TX which evidently needs a lot of work.

I will appreciate any feedback on the pros and cons of practicing with a decoder.

Thanks, 73's

That spacing betwee characters is because you learned that here with 20/10 or whatever. You need going on with lesson 40 narrowing the gap from 20/10 slowly to 13/13

Stephen,
what I ment to say was that for my friend decoder use for decoding received CW was hindering progress. He just stayed dependant on the decoder device.

For learning how to send alone there was a discussion recently, have a look.
Try to play let the computer play CW and send with your keyer synchronously.

Trouble I see with your approach: The decoder just tells you it can't decode properly, but doesn't give you any hint on how to improve. Whereas developping your "ear" is all you need to adjust yourself. You will hear when you are in sync with the played CW text.
Don't be overambitious with the CW and don't even think about keying Farnsworth, as this will give you no chance to learn the rythm of normal CW.

GL

Gerd.

Lookup the 'PCW-fistcheck' program from this page: https://www.qsl.net/dj7hs/download.htm

It will not only decode your sending but will give you a visual representation of the relative lengths of your dots/dashes (though, if you are using a keyer, that may not be a problem).

You can also type phrases or words into it and it will play them with the correct timing - you can then attempt to key the same word/phrase back in - in this way you should be able to try and mimic the correct inter-letter timing.

Anyway, best of luck - I suspect that some regular practice with the keyer will make the individual letters come more easily and this in turn will allow you space words more easily.

NB

Some decoders just divide everything into dits and dahs based on an average, so you don't really get a feel for your timings.

These devices work ok with (learning) iambics which do the dit da timings for you, but not for manual.


Best may be to send some text and record the morse, then run the text through an mp3 generator and see if you generated the same or similar timings.

This is probably an on-going process / unless you have the sort of friends who will tell you . . .

. . so probably you are worrying too much

YMMV etc etc

cb