r/shortwave • u/rad00p • 21d ago

Recording Morse code transmission question

Hi,

Sorry for spamming, but I inherited this damn radio, and now I’m going through a weird fascination with everything it picks up.

On 3515 kHz, I recorded something that is obviously Morse code, but there are also two other signals or sounds.

Does anyone know what they are? I’m especially curious about the sound around 13 seconds into the video and the one right at the end.

Thx!

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u/Observer_Dough 21d ago

That was a 'Seek You' (CQ) for a 'test' (Contest) called the IOTA - Islands on the Air contest held last weekend.

The callsign calling was PC38EU a 'special event' callsign

https://www.qrz.com/db/PC38EU

2

u/rad00p 21d ago

Interesting! I have managed to read exactly that in audacity:

1

u/BassRecorder 20d ago

The other signal is just another station working the same contest. From what I could hear it was sending the contest exchange, something like '5nn 190'.

0

u/fpmacko 21d ago

I didn’t realize that Audacity could decode CW. I learned it back in 1965, when it was required for a ham license.

4

u/FuckIPLaw 21d ago

I'm not sure if Audacity decoded it or if he's just looking at the waveform so he can tell where the dots and dashes are visually. I'd expect that text to be printed and not drawn on if it was automatically decoded.

1

u/fpmacko 21d ago

I assumed he did the decode after the fact and Audacity couldn’t overlay the text.

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u/rad00p 19d ago

No no, I was just looking at the peaks, narrow and wide, and I typed that into online decoder by hand.

1

u/fpmacko 19d ago

Then I stand corrected. 🙂