How to send @ or % in Morse Code

Many of those proficient in Morse might be stumped when it comes to sending @ or %, fortunately the ITU-R recommendation on International Morse Code provides an answer.

The ITU Radiocommunication Sector (ITU-R) is one of the three sectors (divisions or units) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and is responsible for radio communication.

Recommendation ITU-R M.1677-1 (10/2009) confirms the International Morse code characters and the operational provisions applying to their use in radiocommunication services.

The Morse code for @ is .– – .– .

For the percentage sign % there is no corresponding signal in the Morse code and they recommend that the figure 0, the fraction bar and the figure 0 shall be transmitted successively.

A whole number, a fractional number, or a fraction, followed by a % sign, shall be transmitted by joining up the whole number, the fraction number, or the fraction to the % by a single hyphen.

For 2% you would transmit 2-0/0

The ITU-R International Morse Code Recommendation M.1677-1 (10/2009) can be downloaded in Word or PDF format - http://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-M.1677-1-200910-I/en

Other ITU-R M Series Recommendations are available at http://www.itu.int/rec/R-REC-M/en

New Chinese Data Mode CP-16

Existing amateur radio data modes have been based around the English alphabet - now a new mode has been developed to handle Chinese characters.

Since 2011 the Chinese Radio Amateurs Club (CRAC) have been working on a project to develop a new mode CP-16, which stands for Chinese character Pattern of 16x16 dot-matrixes.

To achieve the goal of allow easy communication at very low S/N ratio, CP-16 is designed to directly transmit the graphic image of Chinese character as a 16 by 16 dot-matrix, one line at a time and about 10 ms per line adjustable according to the conditions. This makes the total transmission speed of 2 to 5 characters per second, which is suitable for real-time reading.

It uses 16 on-off –keyed audio carriers spaced at 17 Hz intervals, the total bandwidth is under 400 Hz.

The CP-16 message can be received by any SDR receiver or the combination of an ordinary SSB receiver and a PC computer, plus any SDR/audio analysing software with waterfall display. The text will be directly shown on the waterfall graph. The human brain will easily filter out all sorts of noise and correctly pick up the character.

Paper on the work was presented by CRAC to the IARU Region 3 conference in Vietnam - http://www.iaru-r3.org/15r3c/docs/056.doc

Short path propagation charts from the UK

Steve G0KYA has now updated his short path HF propagation charts for the UK for the next three months – November, December and January.

These have been created using the latest smoothed sunspot numbers from NOAA in the US and HAMCAP.

Steve says: “October was a fantastic month for 10m propagation withmost of the world being workable at times. Early November saw a dip in the solar flux index, which manifested itself as poorer conditions overall.

“But the flux has been climbing steadily over the past few days and is back in the 130s again so 10m is opening up nicely. There are more spots rotating into view which bodes well for the next 8-10 days too.

“We just have to worry about solar flares and coronal mass ejections, which could be a fly in the ointment. Solar flares can bring short-lived D layer absorption, while coronal mass ejections, if earth facing, can bring about depletion of the F layer for many days.”

Look out for a high solar flux index (>120) and a low K index (0 or 1) at http://www.solarcycle24.com for the best HF conditions.

Steve also says that the low bands are also coming into their own with the extended periods of darkness in the northern hemisphere.

“Keep an eye on 80m – there will be good openings to the US at dawn, and 40m has been open to parts of the US way past sunrise over the last week,” Steve says.

December should be a good month for the low bands, including Top Band (160m), although probably not as good as we have seen a few years ago around solar minimum.

The November propagation chart can be found at http://www.infotechcomms.net/propcharts/november/

A link to all of the charts can be found at http://www.g0kya.blogspot.co.uk/