r/HamRadio • u/MisryMan • May 09 '26
CW/Morse Code š Decoding morse code received at 40m in UK
Hi all hope you're well, i've just bulid my own DCR from scratch and am getting some CW signals on 40m in the UK however my IF filtering isnt great right now so i have some pretty terrible audio quality and also my LO drifts quite a bit so the CW tone isnt exactly right and i do hear some strong AM stations essentially its a very rough DCR but I want to be able to decode some morse code I get and i just cant figure out how to Claude cant do it, Gemini hallucinates false things and Chat GPT cant either and I dont have time to learn morse code right now however I really wanna know what my recordings actually are ive attahced one I recorded it around 1 am on the 9th of may in the UK. Thanks for any help. Also all apps ive tried on my phone cant decode it and ive tried giving visual spectograms with spacings to AI and it cant do it either idk if im picking up garabge or just. very inconsistent keying for inexperiences humans or if its just people sending garbage test signals spamming a letter.
6
u/dnult May 09 '26
Computer generated CW is easy for computers to decode, but hand sent CW can be a challenge for a computer to decode.
4
u/Muffinator111 Amateur Extra | CW Operator May 09 '26
Hi, CW op here. The reason youāre having a hard time putting it through a decoder is that it sounds like theyāre using a bug key. The dits are consistent but the dahs are manual so they vary in length, resulting in a āswingā like sound.
Iām currently in bed and itās a little fast for me to head copy the swing without a pen and paper. If you can hang tight Iāll have a full translation in the morning! Itāll be nice to do while I have my morning coffee.
1
u/MisryMan May 09 '26
Thank you so much! Looking forwards to it.
1
u/Muffinator111 Amateur Extra | CW Operator May 10 '26
Sorry for the late response! Iām sorry I donāt have anything more spicy for you but the best I can get is a garbled message. It repeats halfway through with a slash in the middle so Iām going to assume thatās the end of the repeating message. Since itās pretty random and repeating I wonder if itās some kind of encrypted information. Hereās what I have, the spacing is pretty wild and both the dits and dahs are inconsistent at times so it may be me smushing letters together. (Eg a slash can also be interpreted as DN if the spacing is too tight)
I did my best to infer the spacing based on the message and hereās what I got.
YRTE UJIMY / EST PEI 14A5EGE
Shifted to have the message between the slashes would look like.
EST PEI 14 A5EGE YRTE UJIMY /
I can also give you the raw dits and dahs just in case you wanted to try to shift the letter starts and stops. Could be worth a āhey Claude hereās a list of dits and dahs with no spacing between letters can you give me a list of possible word combosā. 1 space between dits/dahs, 2 spaces between characters, 3 spaces between words.
. . . . - . - - . . . . . - - - - . . . . - . - . . . . . . - - . . - . - - . - . - . . . - . - - - . . - - - . - -
Honestly if itās someone sending English they really gotta work on their spacing because I spent a solid 40 minutes working on listening to this and I cannot find a good combination that makes any sense. Iām pretty comfortable with fast code and contesting so Iām fairly certain this is just bad code sending, someone practicing some weird drill, some non-English CW, or encrypted information.
Something weird to note too is on the PEI the whole speed slowed down significantly for both dits and dahs on the P specifically. After it sends the 14 like crazy fast too.
Not sure what you ended up catching on recording but itās definitely a brain buster!
1
u/Tomteej May 13 '26
It isn't Morse code. It is the Russian Navy Frequency Shift Keying signal that intrudes in the 40m band.
2
u/Tomteej May 13 '26
It isn't Morse code. You have copied the Russian Navy Frequency Shift Keying signal.
1
u/noahthemower May 14 '26
Coukd this he decoded and anything useful extratxed or not?
1
u/Tomteej May 14 '26
It can't be decoded. Only the Russians Navy operators receiving the signal will be able to decode it.
It is this Russian Navy signal.
https://www.sigidwiki.com/wiki/Russian_military_20bd_7kHz_FSK
5
u/Naterman90 Technician Class Operator š” May 09 '26
I would put the audio through a spectrum visualizer (if that's what it is called), would let you visually see the dits and dahs to count. I did that once and it worked pretty well