Trans-Tasman CW & Digital Contest

CW decoder software

One of the aims of this contest is to increase contact rates by encouraging participants to use both CW and Digital modes, and allowing each station to be contacted twice per hour, ONCE on CW and ONCE on Digital.

CW decoder sofware has steadilly improved over the years and can now be used under contest conditions for CW contacts by operators with little or no CW experience. The widespread use of electronic keyers has made many CW signals "near perfect", further improving CW decoding.

Many digital mode programs are capable of decoding CW with reasonable accuracy, and the contest contact format and the repeated serial numbers all help make a CW contact. Keying the transmitter can be done either in SSB using the same audio tone setup used for digital modes, or through a simple interface that keys the transmitter directly in CW mode.

Software:

CWdecoder XP

CW only TX/RX.
Excellent decoder, especially if input levels are kept low.
Keying is not so relaible, and may not work at a reasonable speed on some PC's.
Some newer PC's allow several programs to access the sound interface at the same time, allowing multiple decoders and sending software to be used, so CW decoded can be used in combination with other software, where sending may be done by another program, and CW decoder is run as a second decoder.

MultiPSK

Despite the rather complex operating screen, the program does work quite well for both TX and RX. It also has several keying options.

FLdigi

Another good CW decoder and TX program, with an adjustable wide bandwidth. Only supports audio based interfaces: either SSB or through an audio detector/optocoupler to key the transmitter.