Sending Practice
Send the word, then let the timing be measured. The gaps are where it goes wrong.
| Element | Measured | Target |
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Copying and sending are two different skills, and only one of them can be practiced alone. You can copy from a recording; you cannot hear your own sending the way someone else does. This tool measures every mark and every gap you produce and compares them with what the standard asks for.
What is actually being measured
Five ratios, all relative to your own dot length. That matters: it does not judge your speed, only whether the proportions hold at whatever speed you chose.
- Dash against dot. Should be exactly three. Under two and a half, a receiver starts hearing your dashes as dots.
- Evenness of the dots. How much they vary from each other. This is the single best measure of a steady hand.
- The gap inside a character, which should equal one dot.
- The gap between characters, three dots. This is where almost everyone fails.
- The gap between words, seven dots.
Because the tool knows which word you were asked to send, it can tell a too-short character gap from a gap inside a character. Without that knowledge the two are indistinguishable - which is exactly why a receiving operator mishears them.
The gaps, not the symbols
Almost every beginner sends good dots and dashes and bad gaps. The reason is simple: the marks are something you do, and the gaps are something you stop doing. Nobody counts while resting.
The result is predictable. A character gap that drifts from three dots down to one and a half turns IM into Ü and ET into A. The letters are perfectly formed; the message is still wrong, and the operator at the other end has no way to tell what you meant.
If your score is low and the word came out wrong, look at the character gap line before you look at anything else. It is the fault four times out of five.
Working on it
- Slow down until it is clean, then stay there. A steady 10 words per minute is far more useful on the air than a ragged 20. Speed follows evenness and never the other way round.
- Count the gaps aloud at first. One for inside, three between letters, seven between words. It feels absurd and it works.
- Send the same word until the score stops moving. Repetition of one word teaches the hand more than variety does.
- Watch the dot variation. If it stays above twenty percent, your problem is not timing knowledge but grip and rhythm.
When your score sits reliably above 90, the next step is a real key. What you have built here transfers directly: the ratios are the same, only the resistance under your finger is new.
Frequently asked questions
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What does the score mean?
It rates the timing only, out of 100: the dash to dot ratio, how even your dots are, and the two gaps. It does not check whether you sent the right word - that is reported separately above the table.
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Why did my word come out as something else?
Almost always a gap. If the pause between two letters is too short, they merge into one character; if a pause inside a character is too long, one letter splits into two. The symbols themselves are rarely the problem.
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Does the speed I choose affect the score?
No. Everything is measured relative to your own dot length, so a perfectly proportioned 8 words per minute scores the same as a perfectly proportioned 25.
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Is a mouse or the space bar good enough?
For learning the proportions, yes. Neither gives you the feel of a real key, but the timing you learn here is exactly the timing a key demands.