James Allan Contributing Editor Pilot Magazine 1993

"One easy-to-use program for the PC that recently came our way is the Morse Code Tutor, written by D B Snow to help candidates for the CAA's instrument rating tests. It is really such a self-explanatory program that the eight-page instruction leaflet supplied with it is all but superfluous. Mr Snow's method of dunning Morse into you is to divide up the alphabet into Opposites (like L . - . . and Y - . - -), Inverts (like R . - . and K - . -) and so on. The program then coaxes you gently on, teaching you how to pick letters out from these small groups, then expanding into larger groups until the whole 26 letters (and the numbers too if you are a real masochist, though these are not required for the CAA exams) are within your grasp. You can start off by asking your PC to bleep the dits and dahs slowly to you and gradually work up to speed. The CAA tests IR candidates at about 7 words per minute and this program can produce anything from three to ten wpm. You can opt to learn in silence (to avoid driving everyone else within earshot mad) by selecting a flickering lamp symbol on screen instead of the beeps. The training phases of the program give lots of useful hints (C is - . - . sounding something like 'Charlie Charlie' while Q is - - . - with the same rhythm as God Save the Queen and so on). The testing stages let you choose between single letters, three-letter groups or even groups of ten long words sent consecutively. The nicest thing about this program is that it turns a normally boring subject into really quite a fun challenge. No knowledge of Morse is officially required of a PPL, but a working knowledge does help a lot in identifying beacons. And if you intend ever heading for an Instrument Rating, even post-JAA, you are still going to need to pass a Morse test of some sort. Morse Code Tutor provides a most painless way of acquiring the necessary knowledge." James Allan Contributing Editor Pilot Magazine September 1993

James Allan Contributing Editor Pilot Magazine 1999

The programmers have recently been busy, working away at Maple Leaf Software's excellent little Morse Code Tutor program for PCs, which Pilot reviewed some years ago. Since it first appeared, this Tutor has become virtually a UK industry standard for pilots looking for a reasonably painless way of learning the Morse Code. Morse may now be in the process of being phased out for many purposes, but it will still be used within aviation a long time to come, as a means of identifying navaids, etc, and Morse still forms a part of the CAA CPL examination syllabus. This new PC Tutor is actually quite an enjoyable way of self-teaching yourself Morse. It cleverly first arranges the letters into easily comprehended groups with similar characteristics, then enables you to test yourself on individual groups until you know you have mastered them, before going on to extend your knowledge of the Morse alphabet. The tests can be adjusted for speed (from 5 to 24 words per minute) and tone, and you can work up to a full-scale replica of the CAA test. Really keen types can go farther, and learn such esoteric parts of the code as numbers, or even Morse punctuation marks. A few fun sound effects are included in the Tutor, and depending on your frame of mind, these will either annoy you, or help take the ignominy out of repeated failures to get a particular letter correct. The latest version, Morse99, has been re-written for Windows 95/98/NT. It is thus much slicker to work with (largely through use of mouse or trackball) than the rather clunky earlier DOS version, but it still manages to preserve all the good points of the original. One noticeable improvement is that it supports sound-cards, allowing you to control the volume and, if you wish, listen through the sound-card headphone connector as an alternative to using the PC speaker. There is an option to use a lamp as well as (or instead of) the Morse sound, and you can type any message and have Morse99 play it back to you. It loads extremely easily, its functions are completely intuitive, its demands on the computer are minimal and it is very reasonably priced. Users of the earlier version who wish to upgrade to Morse99 for Windows can do so for just £10, by applying to Maple Leaf Software, Maple Leaf House, Ditton Green, Woodditton, Suffolk, CB8 69SQ (e-mail: snowy@mlsoftware.freeserve.co.uk). New Morse enthusiasts can buy the program for just £25 from there, or from Pooleys at their usual address. James Allan Contributing Editor Pilot Magazine February 1999.

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