Application Description
Since I do not have the time for further development of Morse Pilot, I am providing Open Source legacy code for any interested party to modify. Gnu Public Licence V2 (GPL-2) applies (text included with the distribution).Morse Pilot is a popular and very comprehensive freeware Morse code tutor / trainer with decoder and encoder functions.
Morse Pilot is intended for personal training (for example for radio ham or aviation examinations). Of course it is
not a substitute for proper training or a real morse key. For more information see the README file included in the distribution.
Main features:
- Fast, easy to use interface with navigation by large screen buttons or hard buttons, and audio feedback options for blind users
- Morse input via long / short screen taps, with automatic calibration function
- Variable speed / frequency / volume Morse output
- Various text sources, including graded lessons (built-in or custom memos), memo or clipboard text, or graffiti, as well as random words and abbreviations, realistic amateur radio transmission texts ...
- Character input by graffiti or external keyboard
- Electronic key simulator
- Extensive help, parameter preferences saved between sessions
It is surely a little bizarre to use a small high-tech device to learn a 150 year old human readable digital text coding protocol, but then learning is still as complex as it always was, and Morse Code is still used in a surprising variety of situations.
Thanks to all of you experimentally minded folk who have contacted me with imaginative and practical suggestions for adding to and improving the functionality of Morse Pilot, and I hope that many more will pass their morse tests with its assistance!
Updated Description:
This distribution is updated by adding the Open Source code under the terms of the Gnu Public Licence V 2 (GPL-2, text included in the distribution).
Notes:
- Don't throw away your old PalmOS 3.n devices - they are ideal for training with Morse Pilot! There are a couple of small issues with PalmOS 5.n devices (see below), though they do not affect the main functionality of the app.
- Memory usage:
11K DXCC.pdb (optional text database)
50K MathLib.prc (obligatory - but you probably have it already)
113K MorsePilot.prc (obligatory - delete previous version before installing)
37K MorseQSOs.pdb (optional text database for QSO practice)
94K PToolboxLib761.prc (obligatory - you may have it already with games apps; only install if this version is higher)
- Version 3.3 is compiled with the newest version of PocketC and is distributed with the newest version of the PToolboxLib library. This has resolved the graphics issues with PalmOS 4 and PalmOS 5.
- The Tungsten T beeper and timing behaves slightly differently from the beeper and timing in other devices. You may have to set the pitch to 500 Hz, the Dash/Dot ratio to 3.5 and the Dot/Space ratio to 1.5 to get good results (experiment a little with the settings).
- Morse Pilot has been used successfully with the following devices:
- Palm Pilot Professional with III upgrade (PalmOS 3.0).
- Palm IIIc (PalmOS 3.5).
- Palm Vx (PalmOS 3.5)
- Palm mXXX series
- Palm Tungsten T (PalmOS 5.0)
- Palm Tungsten E (PalmOS 5.2.1)
- A device freeze was reported for older versions of Morse Pilot during memo input on recent PalmOS 5 devices with Graffiti2. This now seems to be ok.
- There is an issue with multi-stroke Graffiti2 characters, which are not correctly recognised by the Morse Pilot input routines. This does not affect other functions. It will be some time before this can be fixed.
- I have received numbers of requests to include an interface with other hardware, such as a qrp tx. After much experimentation and consultation with Jeremy Dewey (PocketC developer), it seems that a simple solution is not available. If anyone has hardware which will decode serial ASCII output into Morse Code via the serial port, please get in touch and I will try to include an option to send text this way.
- The screenshot will be updated asap.
- V 3.5 is a maintenance edition which was re-compiled with PocketC 6.5.1.
User Reviews
307 of 632 people found this review helpful:
18-Oct-07 by Tom Osborne
Confusing, crashed, locked up my handheld. Unable to make it useful for anything.
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434 of 845 people found this review helpful:
13-Jan-04 by Rick Nelson
Wow! What a great little program to have on a PALM. It's like taking your CW ham radio with you. A perfect way to increase your CW ability with the random QSOs. I was hoping to find a program like this to savour the spirit of ham radio while on the go and to interest others in ham radio and CW. Thanks!
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405 of 813 people found this review helpful:
13-Mar-03 by A Pringle
Great program for learning aviation morse, and totally free! Requires some experimenting but well worth it. Loved the ability to create my own memopad lesson files. Not a 5 star due to the following issues:
- takes a long time to load on my Palm IIIxe
- on the input calibrate menu, if you overide the WPM after a tap calbration, it gives a "divide by zero" error and kicks you out of the program
- on the tap calibration routine, the first line of the statistics screen has "EVALUATE" superimposed on something else (starts with "Ne", ends with "ib!", can't really make it out - a bug nonetheless!).
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418 of 803 people found this review helpful:
18-Sep-02 by Dafydd Gibbon
Dave, looks like potentially useful feedback there. Problems like these have not been reported before, in spite of all the downloads since the first distribution, so if you can send me a bug report with the usual details on when the crashes occur and where the confusion lies I'll deal with them for the next release. Thanks, Dafydd
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431 of 890 people found this review helpful:
13-Sep-02 by Dave Rodriguez
I found it very confusing and it made my palm crash several times causing me to have to reset it. The menus are not very user friendly.
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