[Tlf-devel] TLF trainer idea

[Nate Bargmann]

I had an idea strike me today about some sort of trainer for TLF and
Morse Code using cwdaemon.  First, some background.

I have an AEA Morse Machine (sadly no longer made) that has a neat DX
contest function.  Some years ago I rigged up my computer with CT and,
if I recall, rigged it to send to the MM.  This made for a good way to
train and play contester without on the air embarrassment.  :-)

For some reason all of that came back today.  Maybe it's my mental
decompression from Field Day where my CW skills (never great) weren't
as sharp as I'd like.  So I recalled that trainer setup, but I'd like
to do it with a twist and without additional equipment.

I am thinking of a seperate program that could extract calls out of a
file like MASTER.DTA or the file formatted for PED (the CT trainer) and
send it to cwdaemon for playback through the speakers.  The operater
would enter it into TLF and use its facilities to send the call and
exchange which could be echoed back to the program which could then
respond with an exchange based on the contest rules in use.  Finally,
the trainer could keep its own log that the TLF log could be scored
against. 

It sounds like a lot to do, and like XTLF, Perl might be the fastest
way to get started.  I've only played with TLF a little bit, but from
what I know, it should need no modification.  I'm not familiar with the
internals of cwdaemon so I'm not sure how difficult it would be to
enable it to echo the text it receives from TLF so the trainer could
receive what is sent from TLF.

The trainer for starters could send its text through cwdaemon and at
some point would be useful to send to the sound card directly to enable
pile-up, QRM, QRN, QSB, etc. simulation (which would take someone with
considerable audio programming skill to accomplish).  The trainer could
not only vary the speed but the weighting as well.

I'm no expert coder and I may start hacking at this in the near future.
Something like this wouldn't just be a good trainer, it could be a good
pursuit in and of itself using the same software as an on the air
contest.

If something like this already exists, I'll play with it to avoid
duplication of effort.  Otherwise, I think this would be a fun addition
to TLF.

What does everyone think?

73, de Nate >>

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