The ARRL kicked off 2011 with a news item that hopefully is not a harbinger of more retro-tech lameness to come during the new year. (Hint: It is.) "Ring in the New Year with Morse Code Ringtones" started off well enough; make your cellphone ring with CQ CQ CQ or some such. I did this almost two years ago and it's great fun; I even made ringtones with my wife's name, the callsigns of hams in the Bay-Net group, etc. I got lots of good comments on my ringtones from folks at the 2010 Dayton Hamvention; a few even requested that I email them copies of my MP3 files for their phones.The ARRL article fails on two fronts; first off it talks about creating Morse Code ringtones like it's a completely new thing (clearly it's not), and secondly it goes into detail about the horribly convoluted process Tom AD1B used to create his tones. Tom actually used his Ten-Tec rig and a keyer paddle to generate the Morse Code, recorded the audio (article is unspecific on how he did this; my money is on "8-Track Tape Deck"), massaged the audio files in Audacity, and then generated MP3 files. Talk about using a bazooka to kill a mosquito.
Clever. And completely unnecessary. I generated my MP3 files by going to LWCO.net, a website created by Fabian Kurz, DJ1YFK. Fabian's website (the URL is an acronym for "Learn CW Online") offers a number of useful tools, many of which are based on Fabian's excellent open source "ebook2cw" library. One of the tools on LCWO is "Convert text to CW". You type in text. It generates an MP3 file for download. You put the file on your phone. Done. I can generate a library of unique ringtones for twenty people in the time it takes Tom to record and process one.
And even my method is now somewhat obsolete with the advent of apps for smartphones that convert text to Morse Code on the fly. MorseRing for Android is available in the Android Market for 99 cents. It converts Caller ID strings to Morse Code. The beauty of MorseRing is that I now know who's calling me even if my phone is 25 feet away. I'm sure there is similar apps for the iPhone, possibly one for Palm, likely not for Blackberry.
4 comments:
Thanks for making me chuckle even though I am feeling crap due to trying to work through the Flu. Your sarcasm shines though like beacon of hope on a sea of incredulity. As you said in the last post "you can't fix stupid".
Yup, I thought the same thing. That Fabian over at LCWOL even lets you put his Morse recorder on your webpage (I did). I'm always amazed at the guys that put all that cool free stuff out there. Best of 73 de Tom AB9NZhttp://radiotelegrapher.posterous.com/
Not just doing it wrong, but doing the wrong thing. When I saw that the first ARRL electronics project was a Morse code practice oscillator, my heart sank. Way to get with the the 21st century, guys.
This is the Ham Radio equivalent of Haute Coutre. Just as very few educated youth serve the nation in uniform, yet today's NY Times does a very classy (as always) Photo essay on Military Fashion among the hipsters and Youth elite of NYC.
Why is Morse Code cool as a prop or icon, but not advocated as a mode with the same "cool" and enthusiasm? Yes, we've discussed this before from different perspectives.
I did appreciate Thomas's remarks on LCWOL...there pockets of substantive Morse Haute Coutre but most New Hams are Fashion pretenders as I've noted elsewhere.
Cheers from So Calif
mike/wa4d
wa4d.net
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