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Random CW practice generator
Real on-air shapes — not random letter groups. Generate a full QSO opening, a CQ call, a contest exchange, or a closing line with random but realistic call signs, names, locations, and signal reports. Copy it for practice text or play it as audio at your target WPM.
Pick a shape
Generated text
Click "Generate" to start.
How to use it
A real practice routine
- Generate a QSO opening. Copy what you see to paper. Speak it aloud the way it would sound — the call, the DE, the RST. This trains the *shape* before the rhythm.
- Hit Play. Listen with eyes closed. Don't write. Just identify the shape: "that was a CQ", "that was an exchange".
- Generate three more at the same WPM. After 5 minutes you'll start hearing the boundaries between elements automatically.
- Bump WPM up by 1. Repeat. The audio renderer respects WPM exactly so your training matches what real on-air operators send.
- Once 22 WPM feels natural, open the operating reference, find a slow-speed net, and call CQ for real.
Anatomy
Why the shapes look like that
The generator does not invent a format. The calling procedure is set out in Recommendation ITU-R M.1677-1, Part II: the calling station sends the other station's call sign no more than twice, then the word DE (“from”), then its own call sign, then the invitation to transmit K. The station called replies the same way. That is exactly the skeleton of the CQ call and the QSO opening above, which is why practising these shapes transfers directly to the air.
The same Recommendation ends a transmission with the cross signal followed by K, and ends the contact with the end-of-work signal — the prosign written SK. The closing shape follows that order: thanks, name, 73, then SK.
In the contest exchange, 5NN is the signal report 599 with two digits replaced by letters: N takes one third the time of 9. Those are cut numbers, an operating shortcut rather than part of the standard.
The abbreviations it generates
| Sent | Means |
|---|---|
| DE | from (this is my call sign) |
| RST | readability, strength, tone — the signal report |
| HW? | how do you copy me? |
| BK | break — hand over without a full sign-off |
| TNX | thanks |
| FB | fine business — good, excellent |
| ES | and |
| GL | good luck |
| 73 | best regards |
The full lists live on the CW abbreviations, Q-codes and prosigns pages.
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