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CW listening pitch

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w0mu

Re: CW listening pitch

I like the pitch around 400-500. It is all operator preference.

Mike W0MU

On 3/1/2015 3:28 PM, Edward R Cole wrote:

> These days my ear is perfectly tuned to 1000-Hz. I can whistle it
> within a few Hz. 45 years of working on radios with 1000-Hz tone
> modulation.
>
> 73, Ed - KL7UW
> I usually tune CW pitch somewhere near 550 to 700 Hz for weak-signal
> copying (SNR=0).
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] CW listening pitch
> Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII
>
> > 440 Hz is A above middle-C. Middle C is 261.6 Hz.
>
> Yes. I believe that's the "universal orchestral tuning pitch."
>
> My XYL and I have a running joke. When we go to anything musical, and
> the
> orchestra commences tuning, I ask "What's that?" She says "A" and
> we're ready to
> enjoy another performance.
>
> 73,
>
> George T Daughters, K6GT
> CU in the California QSO Party (CQP)
> October 3-4, 2015
>
>
> 73, Ed - KL7UW
> http://www.kl7uw.com
> "Kits made by KL7UW"
> Dubus Mag business:
> [hidden email]
>
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k6dgw

Re: CW listening pitch

In reply to this post by Edward R Cole

OTOH: I passed my General about 6 months after getting my Novice. I
could have passed the Extra with CW speed to spare except that back then
you had to have 2 years of on-air experience before you could sit for
it. I can still copy the W1AW 35 WPM on a keyboard. Age however has
restricted my hand sending to somewhere between 25 and 30.

Beginning in college, I tried to learn to play the piano, and continued
for the next 50 years. Operative word in that sentence is "tried." We
have an old piano. My wife insisted that I "practice" only when she was
gone. When the kids were little, I took some guitar lessons. I learned
one song ... "Little White Duck" which they sang as I played -- slowly.

Apparently, the Urban Myth is symmetric ... skill with Morse does not
always correlate with musical talent either.

For what it is worth, the best pitch for someone may not be right at the
peak in their hearing. It definitely isn't for me. My hearing was
severely damaged many years ago and the peak for me is around 400 Hz.
I'm basically deaf above about 1200 Hz, my hearing aids are at
afterburner roar up there. Best CW pitch for me however is 570 Hz.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 50th Running of the Cal QSO Party 3-4 Oct 2015
- www.cqp.org

On 3/1/2015 2:22 PM, Edward R Cole wrote:
> I played in the school band from 5th grade thru 12th (played clarinet
> and oboe). I was member of the church choir. I play classical
> guitar...and never got better than 12wpm copying CW. But my musical
> background likely made sending easy (18-20wpm with straight key).
>
> So goes another "urban myth".
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Wes (N7WS)

Re: CW listening pitch

In reply to this post by Edward R Cole

My mom signed me up for violin lessons when I was about 7 or 8. I hated it and
quit shortly after. In hindsight (20-20) I wish I would have stayed with it. In
high school a friend was a drummer in the band. He wanted to take up sax but
the *hole director wouldn't let him because he needed drummers for the marching
band. My buddy convinced me to become a drummer so he could take up sax. Of
course, you don't need to read much music to play snare drum in a marching band
so my skill was limited. although I did play timpani in the orchestra so I read
(past tense) a little.

I was interested in radio even before high school so when I got there I met a
guy who had been a (lapsed) Novice and learned a little more about it. We
formed a radio club and since the principal was a Lt. Cmdr in the Navy reserve
and CO of the local center, the faculty advisor was able to tape record the
Navy's code practice records. The club would meet only once a week to practice
code. Needless to say this wasn't often enough and we would start from the
beginning meeting after meeting. I grew tired of this and wound up learning the
code by sight from my 1954 Boy Scout Handbook (I still have it). As a
consequence I never became proficient. I took my Novice and then Conditional
exams from a neighbor (W7UVR sk).

All was good for some time. I became interested in weak signal VHF work and got
into 2-meter tropo and meteor scatter. Schedules were set up on the Central
States VHF Society net on the high end of 75-meters. At some point it was
decided for QRM reasons to relocate the net to the Advanced Class part of the
band. Uh oh, "incentive licensing" reared its head and I needed to upgrade.

The next time the RI came to town I was ready to take the Advanced exam. Since
I had credit for 13 WPM already I didn't have to take the code test and didn't
practice. After passing the exam I asked the examiner whether I could try the
Extra. He said, sure sit over there, the test will start in a few minutes.
When the test began I completely choked. I wadded up my paper and threw it in
the trash. The examiner said that he needed to see it anyway. He was very kind
and said something like, "I'm afraid I can't get much out of this." I was
humiliated and vowed to pass the exam the next time the FCC came to town., which
I did.

But I'm still neither a musician or a fast CW man.

Wes N7WS

On 3/1/2015 3:22 PM, Edward R Cole wrote:

> I played in the school band from 5th grade thru 12th (played clarinet and
> oboe). I was member of the church choir. I play classical guitar...and never
> got better than 12wpm copying CW. But my musical background likely made
> sending easy (18-20wpm with straight key).
>
> So goes another "urban myth". Of course if I could have held my Novice longer
> than one year that might have helped vs getting a tech license and being
> banned to 6m-up which was mainly AM way back then.
>
> More likely was due to my initial interest in voice vs CW. After three years
> of failed CW exams at the FCC office (long before VE program or multiple-guess
> code tests - one minute perfect copy of five character groups of random
> text/punctuation/numbers). We lived 5 miles too close to take the Conditional
> license.
>
> But I passed in 1982 (24-years later) before the FCC at the Anchorage Office
> because I wanted to go out on the Iditarod Trail as a ham radio checkpoint
> volunteer. Comms were on 80/40m SSB so you had to have a General License. CW
> test made much easier to pass in 1982 with real text and multiple-choice
> testing on content. I also took and passed my Advanced in same sitting.
>
> Passed Extra in 2000 when code requirement was dropped to 13wpm.
>
> 73, Ed - KL7UW
> http://www.kl7uw.com
> "Kits made by KL7UW"
> Dubus Mag business:
> [hidden email]

Sverre Holm (LA3ZA)

Re: CW listening pitch

There is evidence that it is advantageous with a low tone for the pitch (asuming normal hearing). Some studies give evidence for an improvement in recognition rate as the pitch is lowered and it more or less seems to level off at 500 Hz, except for the lowest SNRs where recognition even improves at a pitch of 250 Hz.

Some of the research is summarized here (look for paper 2): http://la3za.blogspot.no/2013/10/studies-on-morse-code-recognition.html

Sverre, LA3ZA

K2 #2198, K3 #3391,
LA3ZA Blog: http://la3za.blogspot.com,
LA3ZA Unofficial Guide to K2 modifications: http://la3za.blogspot.com/p/la3za-unofficial-guide-to-elecraft-k2.html

Rick Tavan N6XI

Re: CW listening pitch

Yes, I've noticed this. I have no real knowledge of why low tones seem to
make for better copy in QRM but I have guessed that it has to do with the
relative difference in interfering tone for a given offset from the desired
signal. If you listen to 1000 Hz (which many ops do) and the interfering
signal is 100 Hz away, the difference is only 10%. But if you listen to 400
Hz, the difference is 25%. So the filter in your brain may be more
effective distinguishing 400 from 500 Hz than it is in distinguishing 1000
from 1100 Hz. Just a guess.

73,

/Rick N6XI

On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 7:33 PM, Sverre Holm (LA3ZA) <[hidden email]> wrote:

> There is evidence that it is advantageous with a low tone for the pitch
> (asuming normal hearing). Some studies give evidence for an improvement in
> recognition rate as the pitch is lowered and it more or less seems to level
> off at 500 Hz, except for the lowest SNRs where recognition even improves
> at
> a pitch of 250 Hz.
>
> Some of the research is summarized here (look for paper 2):
> http://la3za.blogspot.no/2013/10/studies-on-morse-code-recognition.html
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----
> Sverre, LA3ZA
>
> K2 #2198, K3 #3391,
> LA3ZA Blog: http://la3za.blogspot.com,
> LA3ZA Unofficial Guide to K2 modifications:
> http://la3za.blogspot.com/p/la3za-unofficial-guide-to-elecraft-k2.html
> --
> View this message in context:
> http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/CW-listening-pitch-tp7599535p7599630.html
> Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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Jim Brown-10

Re: CW listening pitch

On Sun,3/1/2015 10:25 PM, Rick Tavan N6XI wrote:
> Yes, I've noticed this. I have no real knowledge of why low tones seem to
> make for better copy in QRM but I have guessed that it has to do with the
> relative difference in interfering tone for a given offset from the desired
> signal. If you listen to 1000 Hz (which many ops do) and the interfering
> signal is 100 Hz away, the difference is only 10%. But if you listen to 400
> Hz, the difference is 25%. So the filter in your brain may be more
> effective distinguishing 400 from 500 Hz than it is in distinguishing 1000
> from 1100 Hz. Just a guess.

That's my audio professional's best guess too. In general, we humans
hear logarithmically. Also, we hear differences in sounds that are
separated by some "critical bandwidth" that is in the range of 1/3 to
1/6 of an octave. An octave is a 2:1 frequency ratio. So figure 2 to the
1/3 power and 2 to the 1/6 power.

I set my radios between 500 - 550 Hz. Those with severe high frequency
hearing loss might want to try even lower frequency settings. Most (but
definitely not all) hearing loss is greatest at the higher frequencies.

73, Jim K9YC

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Vic Rosenthal

Re: CW listening pitch

At 72 I've discovered that my left ear is pretty much worthless above 1 kHz while my right one works up to about 8 kHz. They both seem to have about the same sensitivity "below cutoff." When I was a kid I could hear the 15 kHz TV horizontal oscillators clearly (and do a lot of other stuff better, too). My best CW pitch seems to be around 520 or 530 Hz.

Vic 4X6GP/K2VCO

> On Mar 2, 2015, at 8:35 AM, Jim Brown <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> On Sun,3/1/2015 10:25 PM, Rick Tavan N6XI wrote:
>> Yes, I've noticed this. I have no real knowledge of why low tones seem to
>> make for better copy in QRM but I have guessed that it has to do with the
>> relative difference in interfering tone for a given offset from the desired
>> signal. If you listen to 1000 Hz (which many ops do) and the interfering
>> signal is 100 Hz away, the difference is only 10%. But if you listen to 400
>> Hz, the difference is 25%. So the filter in your brain may be more
>> effective distinguishing 400 from 500 Hz than it is in distinguishing 1000
>> from 1100 Hz. Just a guess.
>
> That's my audio professional's best guess too. In general, we humans hear logarithmically. Also, we hear differences in sounds that are separated by some "critical bandwidth" that is in the range of 1/3 to 1/6 of an octave. An octave is a 2:1 frequency ratio. So figure 2 to the 1/3 power and 2 to the 1/6 power.
>
> I set my radios between 500 - 550 Hz. Those with severe high frequency hearing loss might want to try even lower frequency settings. Most (but definitely not all) hearing loss is greatest at the higher frequencies.
>
> 73, Jim K9YC
>
> ______________________________________________________________
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Ted Edwards W3TB

Re: CW listening pitch

This is all so very helpful, and I am especially thankful to Sverre for
that wonderful item from his blog.
I am printing that one out and studying it carefully.

One aspect of the listening tone frequency has been zerobeating a station.
The K3 is the first time in my 52 years operating CW when I could actually
do something about it instead of just trying to tune by ear to what I
thought was probably about right. My ability to get that right was not
very good at 700 Hz. That CWT is the greatest thing since sliced bread!

As for tone frequency, I was initially trying to copy at 700 Hz and
wondering why I was not doing as well as expected in the ARRL DX CW last
weekend.
I dropped it to 600 Hz and will experiment this week with 550 Hz and 500 Hz.

My thanks to everybody on the Elecraft Reflector.

On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 4:19 AM, Vic Rosenthal <[hidden email]> wrote:

> At 72 I've discovered that my left ear is pretty much worthless above 1
> kHz while my right one works up to about 8 kHz. They both seem to have
> about the same sensitivity "below cutoff." When I was a kid I could hear
> the 15 kHz TV horizontal oscillators clearly (and do a lot of other stuff
> better, too). My best CW pitch seems to be around 520 or 530 Hz.
>
> Vic 4X6GP/K2VCO
>
> > On Mar 2, 2015, at 8:35 AM, Jim Brown <[hidden email]> wrote:
> >
> >> On Sun,3/1/2015 10:25 PM, Rick Tavan N6XI wrote:
> >> Yes, I've noticed this. I have no real knowledge of why low tones seem
> to
> >> make for better copy in QRM but I have guessed that it has to do with
> the
> >> relative difference in interfering tone for a given offset from the
> desired
> >> signal. If you listen to 1000 Hz (which many ops do) and the interfering
> >> signal is 100 Hz away, the difference is only 10%. But if you listen to
> 400
> >> Hz, the difference is 25%. So the filter in your brain may be more
> >> effective distinguishing 400 from 500 Hz than it is in distinguishing
> 1000
> >> from 1100 Hz. Just a guess.
> >
> > That's my audio professional's best guess too. In general, we humans
> hear logarithmically. Also, we hear differences in sounds that are
> separated by some "critical bandwidth" that is in the range of 1/3 to 1/6
> of an octave. An octave is a 2:1 frequency ratio. So figure 2 to the 1/3
> power and 2 to the 1/6 power.
> >
> > I set my radios between 500 - 550 Hz. Those with severe high frequency
> hearing loss might want to try even lower frequency settings. Most (but
> definitely not all) hearing loss is greatest at the higher frequencies.
> >
> > 73, Jim K9YC
> >
> > ______________________________________________________________
> > Elecraft mailing list
> > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> > Post: mailto:[hidden email]
> >
> > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
> > Message delivered to [hidden email]
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
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--
73 de Ted Edwards, W3TB and GØPWW

and thinking about operating CW:
"Do today what others won't,
so you can do tomorrow what others can't."
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Chester Alderman

Re: CW listening pitch

In reply to this post by Sverre Holm (LA3ZA)

Sverre, thanks for the interesting information on CW pitch!

About 15 to 20 years ago, myself and maybe some 15 other USA hams got into
QSO'ing at QRQ. (In my opinion, QRQ is anything over about 60 wpm) I had
served in the Navy for 11 years, with six of those years spent on Navy
aircraft carriers, mainly in the Gulf of Tonkin. Our berthing spaces were
always immediately below the flight deck, toward the rear of the carrier; in
other words about ten feet below where Navy aircraft were landing on the
steel deck. My 'normal' hearing suffered greatly! When operating QRQ,
sometimes with QSO's at around 120 wpm, but mostly >80 wpm, I found that a
pitch frequency of about 520 hz was best for me; however as the years wore
on, I found going down to around 480 hz was much better (as my hearing
continued to decrease due to age!). Now, at age 76, I finally had hearing
test done and found my hearing peaks at 375 hz, and 1 kc and 185 hz is 12 dB
below that. The so-called "advantage" of this is that our hearing now also
acts as filters for atmospheric static noise above about 800 hz.

I think that as we age, all of us lose most of the high frequency audio
spectrum and the typical manufacturer's classic sidetone frequency of 700 hz
is seldom optimum for the 'over 45' age group. Still, IMO, the 'best' CW
pitch is only determined by the individual.

73,
Tom - W4BQF

-----Original Message-----
From: Elecraft [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Sverre
Holm (LA3ZA)
Sent: Sunday, March 1, 2015 10:33 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] CW listening pitch

There is evidence that it is advantageous with a low tone for the pitch
(asuming normal hearing). Some studies give evidence for an improvement in
recognition rate as the pitch is lowered and it more or less seems to level
off at 500 Hz, except for the lowest SNRs where recognition even improves at
a pitch of 250 Hz.

Some of the research is summarized here (look for paper 2):
http://la3za.blogspot.no/2013/10/studies-on-morse-code-recognition.html

-----
Sverre, LA3ZA

K2 #2198, K3 #3391,
LA3ZA Blog: http://la3za.blogspot.com,
LA3ZA Unofficial Guide to K2 modifications:
http://la3za.blogspot.com/p/la3za-unofficial-guide-to-elecraft-k2.html
--
View this message in context:
http://elecraft.365791.n2.nabble.com/CW-listening-pitch-tp7599535p7599630.ht
ml
Sent from the Elecraft mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
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Elecraft mailing list

Re: CW listening pitch

In reply to this post by Rick Tavan N6XI

I may not have knowledge, but i have a theory. People use different bandwidth filters for various reasons, some for what they have and some for hearing more after a CQ and other reasons. If you are listening to a signal at 400 Hertz you also hear QRM that is in your bandpass. If you are using a 200 Hertz filter you hear from 300 to 500 at the rating of your skirt, but you also hear QRM from the bottom of your actjual bandpass to the top of your actual bandpass depending on the actual signal strength. If you are using a wider bandpass it depends on the actual bandpass and the strength of the QRM, so you hear more at higher frequencies than lower. Of course how much you hear lower depends on the low cutoff of your audio which is presumably above zero and below about 3 khz. If you are an audiophyle maybe higher. Noise frequency goes up to the cutoff of your ears or audio. That is my theory and I am sticking to it!
Willis 'Cookie' Cooke,TDXS Contest Chairman K5EWJ & Trustee N5BPS
From: Rick Tavan N6XI <[hidden email]>
To: Sverre Holm (LA3ZA) <[hidden email]>
Cc: Elecraft Reflector <[hidden email]>
Sent: Monday, March 2, 2015 12:25 AM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] CW listening pitch

Yes, I've noticed this. I have no real knowledge of why low tones seem to
make for better copy in QRM but I have guessed that it has to do with the
relative difference in interfering tone for a given offset from the desired
signal. If you listen to 1000 Hz (which many ops do) and the interfering
signal is 100 Hz away, the difference is only 10%. But if you listen to 400
Hz, the difference is 25%. So the filter in your brain may be more
effective distinguishing 400 from 500 Hz than it is in distinguishing 1000
from 1100 Hz. Just a guess.

73,

/Rick N6XI

On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 7:33 PM, Sverre Holm (LA3ZA) <[hidden email]> wrote:

--
Rick Tavan N6XI
Truckee, CA

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Barry

Re: CW listening pitch

Like W4BQF, I can carry on a QSO at 100+ WPM. Personally, I like the tone bout 500 Hz.

Don't forget that a square wave is made up of a sine wave + its odd harmonics. The higher the fundamental freq, the higher those first few, and most important, odd harmonics are. This can cause the waveform to lose its sharp edges and sound mushy when there is attenuation of those higher freqs due to hearing loss.

Re musical ability, I played clarinet in jr high school and early high school, but gave it up because they required performing in marching band at the weekend football games - this interfered with contesting! I can play a little piano by ear, but never took lessons - one of my regrets... I recall having this CW/music discussion with K1AR and others at the contesting suite in Dayton many years ago - just about everyone in the group had some musical ability.

Barry W2UP