so the next days email to and back

Posted by Jim on June 24, 2005

You know, now comes the other part - can you recommend any of the testing trainers? Be it software or audio?
Ha-ha - you had to see this coming.

Of course.

I used 2 programs to learn. The one for learning letters wasn’t as good as the one you’ve been using, (and I can’t remember which one it was anyway), but the one I used for doing practice tests was called “NuMorse”. I took a look at their website http://www.nu-ware.com/ and they still seem to have the original version (NuMorse) as well as some newer stuff. I could have sworn that it was freeware when I used it, looks it’s a “try it and send in $$$ to get a software key to unlock”. I’m not sure what the restrictions are without the key, but it’s work looking at. The software design of at least NuMorse isn’t the greatest, but it does do a good job of generating sample tests that are very close to the actual tests you’ll eventually be taking.

One thing that I do want to mention are the tests are given at 5 words per minute, but each character is sent at 18 wpm, with the spacing between characters increased so that the “net throughput” is still 5WPM. This is known as Farnsworth speeds, and NuMorse (and probably most other trainers) support that. (You’ll see 2 sliders, one for character speed and one for word speed; you’ll want to adjust for 18WPM characters and at least 5wpm word speed.) If my description isn’t clear, play around a bit with the sliders in NuMorse, you’ll see what I’m talking about.
I should probably plan on a test date for tech for her and I, and a date for general. We need a date in the sand to set a goal against.

That’s more or less what I did for each of my tests. For the tech and General, I didn’t need a lot of lead time (well, I needed more for the CW), but the Extra took me a while, but once I felt that I was getting “close”, I picked a test date and worked towards that. Seems to work out well for lots of folks. You can find a list of upcoming tests here: http://www.arrl.org/arrlvec/examsearch.phtml

I will admit the software is better if you just use it. Its not great for how the test works, or for testing words and phrases, But for letters and basic learning it certainly does the job DAHDAHDAHDAH over and over again until you get it right. It may not be pretty, as we discussed, but it works and focused on the most important part - learning the code not learning to pass a test.

Exactly. It’s not pretty, it’s not fancy, it’s got a barely passable UI, but it does beat the code into your head. I was playing with it and I did find that it actually helped me improve a bit (which isn’t saying much; I can get by at some speeds, but…)
My 13, 14 in August, is doing pretty good with it. 2nd session she is Ã‚Â½ way down all the letters, numbers and symbols.

That’s great. Everything I’ve heard is that kids tend to learn this stuff a lot faster than adults for the same reason that they teach foreign languages to kids relatively early; their brains just seem to be more receptive to this stuff. The embarrassing part will be when you’re struggling to keep up with your daughter (which of course will be mitigated by the “proud Dad” part.) My 17.5 year old got his tech license a few years ago but hasn’t shown any interest in learning CW, and my 14 year old doesn’t seem interested at all. Oh well.

Keep in touch, let me know how you make out. (One of these days we’ll be able to have a chat over the radio!)