The club now has a custom CW reflector based upon the Morserino protocol, providing channelised CW modules for off-air practise QSO’s, listen only feeds and CW training events.
Functionality currently available:
- simple connect and disconnect handshake
- registering your callsign with the server for personal greeting and operator search capability
- QSQ, QSS to request the server to send at a speed of your preference
- calling channel (channel 0)
- read only channel currently streaming random, live DX cluster spots in CQ CQ CQ DE <callsign>x3 announcements
- request which is the next available channel
- QSY to any channel
- ask what the current time is
- regular server heartbeats to keep the Morserino from going to sleep (the server sends QSL as a heartbeat)
Future considerations:
- An AI CW bot for training QSOs when nobody else is about
- Leader based CW courses that are time optimised and efficient
Before you start
After receiving your Morserino Lite, you will notice I have connected the LoRa feeder cable. Some of these, depending on build, have a built in LoRa aerial, some others have an SMA female connector on the end. For those with the SMA, please either attach the little stubby aerial and move it away from board (it has a brass barrel that could short out parts of the circuit) or detach the feeder from the board and store it, with the stubby aerial, safely.
The LoRa capability is great if you have multiple Moreserino’s in your neighbourhood (I have tested it at my QTH with both types of aerial) but it is an unnecessary component if you are unlikely to use LoRa. I aim to switch the menu structure around so WiFi is the default option when selecting Transceiver mode, to save clicks – this will be provided in a new firmware download I am working on.
Connecting to WiFi and reflector
In order to work with the club CW Reflector (or any other Morserino Server) you must first setup the WiFi connection or tether to your mobile phone. This is achieved by choosing the “WiFi config” menu item which will the create a temporary hotspot from the MLite – follow the instructions to join that network from you smartphone/computer and browse to its shared web page. NB: If you find you cannot browse to m32.local, please try 192.168.4.1 as it is usually the IP address it allocates itself.
You then have the ability to define a few hotspots known to the MLite and register each entry to a proposed reflector (or server).
The club CW Reflector can be found at the IP address 95.179.229.135
Once configure the MLite will restart and those defined networks will be selectable in the WiFi page of the MLite (should be straightforward).
The standard Morserino firmware, when connecting to WiFi, has a poor static user interface showing no indication that it is active. This has been modified in the firmware version 221214 available in the right hand column of this page.
Support
If you find any defects in the Morserino Lite or the CW Reflector or would like to submit a feature request, please email mlite@onlineradioclub.org. A ticket will be raised and we will investigate and respond to you as time permits.
For general questions or observations, please post to our club groups.io forum using the hashtags #mlite or #cwreflector as appropriate. I’d also encourage you to answer posts if you know the answer.
Please do not email or message me directly with “support” related questions unless it is life threatening or reputation damaging. Thank you.
Articles
- How do I converse with the server?
- Reflector channel usage
- Morserino Lite hardware layout and usage
- Morserino Lite menu structure
- What to do when there is no response from the CW Reflector
Tips
The full Morserino user manual can be found here on GitHub and the developer of the system also has a Groups.io area here. The user manual explains how to use the Morserino in detail, including all the Morse training modes and using either LoRa or WiFi for CW communication. If you are using one of the Morserino Lite’s, please ignore the sections regarding Decoding and using the Morserino as a Keyer as both of these features have been removed in order to reduce the footprint of the device.
What can I say, Awsome project and stunning coding. I still feel syntax like :qsx g4xix is more apropriate than :qsxg4xix
Just a thought from an OB CW op 73
Two months on and the project continues to grow, I have worked on sending the syntax / commands and it feels more natural now. Looking forward to a qso soon de OB 73
This thing is good fun. Struggling with the no-spaces command thing. Feel very unnatural. Maybe Andy, I can look at the command parser and try something like commands start with a “:” and end with “=” (BT) or “?” ? That would make the questioning commands feel natural and the “=” is a natural separator in regular CW. I mean this may break the parser a lot, but would like to have a look at it. Otherwise the no-word-spacing feels like it is growing bad CW habits in me, as well as being hard to do especially for those who haven’t done a lot of sending.
For the time being I’ve deprecated the two commands that may harm people’s CW experience. At some point in the future I may implement all the persistence and state recovery required to make the server commands conversational.