I have been helping Rick over at internalmonoblog.com lately on deciding how to make a Morse code switch using a mouse. As any good ham radio operator, it is important to learn Morse code, so Rick found a program that helps teach you. He is using Morse Mania OSX. This program will let you practice using morse code by using a USB mouse. Now, a mouse is not a very good switch to use for Morse Code, so Rick decided to use his nice morse code switch through his radio. This is a fairly straight forward hack. All you have to do is find the left click switch on the mouse. There are two terminals for it. One is ground, and the other is floating. You can read more about it at my article for the Rumble Mouse.
His Morse Code switch has a 1/4 inch male stereo plug, so all he had to do was connect a female plug to his mouse. One wire has to go to the ground pin on the mouse board, and one has to go to the floating pin. When the Morse Code switch is pressed, it bypasses the mouse switch, and connects the floating pin to ground. It is the same as pressing the mouse switch, but now you can learn morse code with ease. Check out Rick’s article at http://www.internalmonoblog.com/?p=66
One Response to “DIY Morse Code switch”
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Thanks GrendelT, I will have to check out some of the ham radio PIC projects. I thought Rick did a good job with the mouse. I don’t have a ham radio, but it seems like a lot of fun. I need to look into it.