This is possibly the most frequently asked question I get asked, by visitors when volunteering at the National Radio Centre. The short answer is yes, and it may surprise you to know how many. Within the hobby of amateur radio there are operators around the globe who daily tap away on the key, sending out those dits and dahs to other radio enthusiasts. Just tune to the lower portion of the bands and you will hear their transmissions. OK, but why use morse code? Possibly the second most common question visitors ask. The simple answer is because we can. For many amateurs they have grown up in the hobby using nothing but morse, so to them it's what they enjoy doing. For others it is just one of the many modes they choose to use in making contact with fellow radio hams. Certainly it is not everyone's thing but its use is still strong. One of the advantages of using morse over voice communication is that vast distances can be achieved using relatively low power in comparison to voice modes. Many morse operators tend to transmit using fairly low power (QRP) and have great success in contacting hams around the world. Morse, surprisingly can be received by radio hams when conditions are relatively poor. In these poor conditions the use of voice communication is virtually impossible. So how do I go about learning morse? I can only speak from my own experience. The first thing I would say is that you must really want to learn morse. It will take time, you will have periods when you just can't make progress but you need to persevere. Please don't expect to do this in an hour and be on the air chatting, that isn't going to happen. 1. Forget dots and dashes! That's right, stop looking at morse as dots or dashes, instead think of them as dits or dahs. Why? because that's what morse sounds like, a short dit and a longer dah. Where a dit is at the start or within a letter we use di (pronounced as de). 2. Separate the code down into blocks of five So start by looking at the first five letters of the alphabet, A to E. Write them down and put the corresponding morse code next to them, just like I have below: A: Di Dah B: Dah Di Di Dit C: Dah Di Dah Dit D: Dah Di Dit E: Dit Say them to yourself and start to pick up how each letter sounds. It is the sound that is important rather than the dits or dahs. Once you think you have a grasp of these five letters try putting them together in various combinations. Sure you are a bit limited but give it a go, just like this example: BAD: Dah Di Di Dit, Di Dah, Dah Di Dit Note that there is a small pause where the comma is between the letters. When you are happy to move on take the next fiver letters and do the same, only now combining them with the five you already know. Guess what if you do five letters each day in a week you will have the whole alphabet. Then its time to look at the numbers and these are fairly simple. OK, so how do I pick up morse for real? Great question and the answer is in whatever way you feel matches your learning style. Some people listen to tapes of morse others listen to morse on the air and some use one of the many morse code turors available as software. Whatever method you use try and listen to the morse characters at the right speed for you. When I say this I need to explain that you can send or receive a morse character at 12 words a minute but with an extended pause between each letter. This is known as the Koch method of learning morse. The benefit of learning morse this way is simply that as you become more proficient you can reduce the pause between letters until it flows naturally. I would suggest that when you listen to morse write down what you hear in an exercise book. Don't worry if at first you only get the odd letter, over time the number of letters you get will increase. But why the exercise book? It is a great way to look back at your progress from your first attempts to where you are know. I know when I first learnt morse in the mid 1980s I did this and it made me realise how far I had come in such a short time. Can you recommend software for learning morse? I sure can. The best freeware program currently is written and supported by Ray Burlingame-Goff (G4FON). This is an outstanding piece of software which will enable you to practice both sending and receiving five letters, as I have described. You can visit Rays website to download it at G4FON Please let me know how you get on and I hope to catch you on the key soon.