I’m a little late on this, but I thought I take the moment to write down some reflections on this past year and plan for the future.

I’m coming up on finishing up my second year as a ham, and I’ve started thinking about what my goals for next year are going to be. I will do a more in depth retrospective and goal setting in March, but I wanted to think about what I would want to do and get started on preparing for those goals in these two cold, Winter months of January and Feburary.

I have two big goals that I want to accomplish next year. First I want to activate a park solely on CW. Second I really want to get back into cycling. I hope to be another ham on a bike in the future.

Getting back into cycling is being taken care of by a Victory bike trainer and Zwift. That’s out of scope for this blog, so I’ll concentrate on how I’m getting ready to accomplish my goal of activating a park on CW.

# Learning CW

I’ve got two months to really buckle down on getting good at CW. I feel like I’m on the brink of a break though. I have pretty good instant character recognition of single characters and numbers. I just need to work on building up my buffer for words.

What that means is daily practice of at least 30 minutes. My biggest hurdle for sticking to a CW practice regimen is accessibility. I want to be able to practice anywhere and at any time. Traditional training tools have made it difficult to do that.

There are so many resources for learning CW. It seems like every day someone announces a new vibe coded app on /r/morsecode. Even though we are spoilt for choice with regard to training tools. There are tried and true methods for practicing CW.

We have LCWO.net, Morse Code World, LICW Practice Page, Morse Code Ninja, and many others. They’re all great, but nearly all of them make me sit at a computer to practice. This can be challenging because I sit at a computer all day for work. I tend to avoid them at home. Going down to the basement to sit at my desk to copy and send code it is something I struggle to motivate myself to do. I’d much rather sit in bed and relax.

My ideal practice setup would be something I could use anywhere. It would be great if I could use my phone with a CW key so I could send and copy wherever I was.

Being mobile made studying for the exam something that I could do whenever I had a few minutes to waste. Surely that would help make practicing CW easier to do daily.

## Finding a good mobile training app

There are some good open source Android apps. Dahdidahdit is excellent, but it is a Koch method trainer. The Koch method makes me sit at a table and transcribe random strings of characters with pen and paper.

I tried using Dahdidahdit for a while. I gave it a good try. Even though it is slightly more accessible than sitting at a computer, it still required me to find a flat surface to practice at. I tried to make this a little more mobile by using my Boox Note Air 2, but that was only slightly better. I still couldn’t just practice anywhere.

Morse Trainer is another open source app. However, it too is a Koch method trainer. I just don’t find Koch training enjoyable. It doesn’t feel like the correct way to learn conversational copy. It feels like I’m transcribing sequences of encrypted text, which is what that method was designed to do.

A very popular Android app is Morse Mania (Google Play). I initially hated it because I got smacked in the face with a pay-wall when I finish learning letters. To learn numbers and beyond, I needed to pay for it.

I’ve since come around to Morse Mania and paid for it because it feels like the best Android app for daily practice. It supports copy by ear, and most importantly, it supports the VBand adapter for sending drills.

## Going truly mobile.

So I’ve found a good app to practice daily, now how do I practice anywhere? I’ve constructed a little kit that I can throw in my bag and take anywhere. It is small enough to keep in my pocket if I can spare the pocket room.

It starts with the VBand adapter I made.

Next I picked up some cheap USB-C earbuds. I had to use USB-C because finding a USB-C earphone adapter with USB-C charging and an additional USB-C port is surprisingly hard.

I tried one that had a 3.5mm jack, a USB-C PD power port, and an additional USB-C port, but the USB-C port didn’t work as an OTG port. So I had to go with a 3-in-1 USB-C adapter (Amazon). This worked much better.

I can plug in the VBand adapter, the earbuds, and USB-C power if I need to charge my phone (which I usually do at the end of the day when I try to practice). Given that the earbuds are dedicated to this purpose, it isn’t a big deal they’re USB-C only.

I put the whole kit in this EDC pocket organizer(Amazon) I had lying around.

## Finding the perfect key.

Finally, for the key. This is probably the hardest thing to make portable. I wanted something that I could take anywhere and didn’t take up much room. The CW Morse Pocket paddle that I got my start on is too big for this. The N6ARA Pocket Paddle I built is tiny, but it is fiddly. I used it for a while, but I wouldn’t call it a pleasure to use.

I have been drooling over the VK3IL pressure paddle for a long while. I really like how small it is and its lack of moving parts. However, the price tag was pretty steep. For POTA, $60-$70 was a bit more than I was willing to spend on something I wasn’t sure I’d like, so I just use my CW Morse paddle.

Though, now for my tiny practice kit, the VK3IL paddle looked perfect for my kit. What I didn’t notice the last time I looked at the paddle and decided it was a someday that will never come purchase, was that they had the PCB design files available for manufacturing.

Being no stranger to digikey and JLC PCB, I got excited. VK3IL even had the PCBs uploaded to OSH Park. I could get them in purple. I could get 3 boards made for $17.

The rest of the kit came from digikey. It is only 8 parts in total excluding the 3.5mm pigtail. I bought enough for two paddles and it came out to $26.62. I had extra 3.5mm TRS pigtails from the vband adapter project, but that was $1.19. So price per paddle comes out to $20.17. Not bad for a really cool paddle.

Soldering the tiny surface mount components isn’t terrible. If you can built a SMD practice board successfully, you’re more than capable to put together a VK3IL pressure paddle.

## Conclusion

Sure there are hardware CW code trainers out there that you can plug a key into. I’m sure those are great, but I wanted flexibility. I wanted something that would work with my phone and wasn’t another thing to carry around with me. I am also weary of the effectiveness of those trainers. With an app on a phone, I can pick and choose the best software for me.

Those trainers, while I’m sure they’re worth it, are at least $50 or more without the key or earbuds. My entire kit was $51.73. It just took some soldering.

Item	Price
Vband adapter	$11.30
VK3IL Paddle	$20.17
Earbuds	$5.52
Retractable Aux Cable	$4.75
3-in-1 USB-C adapter	$9.99
Total	$51.73

This setup has been great for me. My daily practice habit streak has been the best it has ever been. Aside from a busy week at work. I’ve managed to get at least 30 minutes of copy and sending practice in a day.

If you’re finding yourself struggling to establish a daily CW practice routine, perhaps going ultra-portable with your kit might make it easier. I hope this kit will inspire you to practice more.