The DMX-40 Review | Can this make CW Easy?

For years now, I've wanted to learn the art of CW. Work, kids, production schedules and laziness have kept me from learning. But now, I've gotten ahold of a new QRP radio that also does morse code encoding and decoding; with or without a CW key or the knowledge to use one.
Show Notes:
Join Me every Monday at Noon Mountain Time (1800 UTC) for lunch & ham radio. I'll bring in short subjects that we can dive in and look at, you can bring up subjects to discuss. You can also join me as a guest on the show.
Join the show live : guest.ecamm.live/818a23d21
Wires X: KZbinrs 40448
FCS Reflector: KZbinrs 003/48

[@ve2zdx]

Great video! My personal advice: - learn characters by the sound, never by dits and dots, and then learn the most common words by sound as well. The whole word - start by doing DX. DX exchanges are basically rst and sometimes name and qth. - if you feel insecure about your listening, use a decoder but look at the decoded text only when you miss a good part of what was sent to you. There are pretty good apps that decode cw, just leave your phone close to the radio. - don't wait until your listening is perfect to get on the air. It's important to trigger the effort/reward mechanism - as you get good, go paperless. This will allow you to increase your speed.

[@kellyklaask7su990]

Always fun and interesting to see all the new stuff they are coming out with. Thanks for the video! 73

[@Davidjb37721]

Thanks for your time

[@roninsc]

Very informative. Tnx Bob!

[@MatthiasLenardt]

Thanks for your deep insights! Really good 👍 Many greetings, Matthias

[@thuff3207]

Thank you for the video and Yes I need to learn more about the DMX-40 and 1300hz that is very interesting.

[@kurt53641]

Bingo

[@yllib68]

Hahaha! Two things I wish I could learn before I'm gone, guitar and CW!!! Neither of which my mind can comprehend! Great video Bob!

[@chuckchamplin6627]

guitar is easy

[@VE7QRZ]

Excellant, thanks.

[@1polonium210]

Another outstanding video, Bob! I am just now breaking in my MMX multi-band transceiver (80/40/20 m). I enjoy operating QRP, and eventually, would like to get to the point at which I can send/receive at 15 wpm with an iambic keyer, relying on the keyboard only occasionally. I hope the MMX will enable me to recover Morse code skills that I allowed to fade away years ago. I also hope that the DMX-40 and the MMX-Triband transceivers will inspire many other Hams to get into or back into Morse Code as well as entice young people who are interested in amateur radio to make the plunge into QRP/CW. 73 KI5KET

[@aidd1938]

Looks like a great tool to have. You can’t tell me that there wouldn’t have been one of these in every telegraph office in the country if they had been available back then.

[@kurt53641]

I agree with your assessment! Add more directions for ICOM 705 or 7300. These are popular radios these days. I finally figured it about once they explained it to me on another video you have. Great product though. It’s fun once you get it going.

[@Andy2e0ree]

Great video brother

[@Blue-Collar-Radio]

As far as the E's and T's decoded on your CQ go. It takes a little bit to figure out your speed. Once it figures out what speed you're sending, it will decode. I've done it with mine with a dummy load. It eventually figures it out. It is a pretty cool little radio. But I'm probably going to sell mine.

[@K3JRZOnTheAir]

It's a neat little device, but I with it was more than just 40m. Still something to keep my eye on. I have seen you spotted on CW with Ham Alert. Great app to find others spotted for POTA or SOTA and anything else we do. I've started using Morse Toad on my iPhone to learn CW. Started about 2 weeks ago. Will join up with the Long Island CW Club soon to help me learn. Good luck & 73! Jeff K3JRZ

[@n8nkqrp595]

As Rob said below, it's the timing and the machine learning on it. My Yaesu FTdx3K doesn't automatically set it.. and it's seriously critical to getting good decoding. My Yaesu is generally poor at it. With manual CW, the more consistantly you send, the faster the decoder will learn it. The thing my Yaesu's decoder utterly refuses to decode is choppy CW.. too heavy on the dahs. Fun and interesting vid Bob.. thanks OM :)

[@stevecolby6505]

Flex 6000 series radios will do a 1300 hertz CW side tone.....So this decoder will work with them without the need for RIT offset and 2600 hertz wide filter. You just set to CW mode, zero beat on waterfall and you are good to go. You can narrow the filter as much as you want to reject nearby stations and 1300 hertz side tone audio comes through. I'm going to give it a try......

[@sonarmb]

Im still trying to figure out how to use my FT5D let alone learn morse!!

[@allyburg7145]

I just bought one 👍

[@echo-hotel]

I have so much to say about this thing! TLDR: Buy one! He is on to something and the price is worth it in the end. Things I hate: The feet/stand are trash. The cover should flip over and be used as a stand. The old leds are way too bright. I’ve used nail polish to cover them up. Hopefully I’ll update them this summer. The instructions are horrible. You may start to wonder if the creator has any clue what he actually made… It has a touch screen! Why not a keyboard on screen?!? I’ve tried five other keyboards and none work. I need to pull out a no power keyboard like an old PS2 and add a USB adapter. It’s in storage. But I bet it’ll work. Only today of all days has he explained (very badly) how you should use the side tone and RIT together. When I was messing with the filter for countless hours… What really sucked is that it worked sometimes. So many wires even when you aren’t using external mode! None of which can get anywhere near the antenna out. Noise! This thing has absolutely no shielding at all. It blasts everything even just by being on. Go to transmit and your speakers well pop and you’ll see your waterfall blip all over the place. Yet somehow it still does its job… I have more complaints. But I really need to play with it more before addressing them here. Things I like: It works! It decodes like nothing I’ve ever tried. And I’ve tried everything. Changing the side tone doesn’t sound as bad as people make you think. You can still decode by ear and check the screen for confirmation if you like. It is a transceiver. You don’t need another radio. You can take this thing out on its own and it just works. It is lite weight and easy to pack. In the future I plan to gut mine and 3-D print something that will more seamlessly integrate the keyboard with the radio. Possibly adding extra buttons that are labelled properly. Or maybe I’ll just make my own keyboard… Adding shielding and the ability to re-rout wires away from the antenna. Extras: He offers a go bag accessory kit kind of thing. The bag is nice as a bag… Very nice actually. But complete and utter trash for this radio. There is no good way to store the radio inside. Not everything can happily fit in the bag that it comes with. The 40 meter EFHW antenna is actually pretty good. Though you may need to tweak it a bit. It’s winter right now so I still need to play with it a bit more. The battery has a pretty large capacity. It comes with a nice USB to barrel plug wire. It provides the 12 V necessary to operate the radio. The solar panel is adequate. It’s won’t keep up with the use of the radio. But it does extend the runtime significantly. There are other little bits like string, pulleys, A weight, steaks, flags, coloured tags, and I’m sure I’m forgetting something more. Final thoughts: Though the creator is frustrating and the community seems non-existent they do seem to be trying their best. The device works and has multiple applications. I can help translate for your base station, or even portable unit. You can have it off to the side and looking for contacts while making contacts on your mean radio. And of course you can take it alone and have some fun doing SOTA/POTA! And you can make contact with The 40 WPM+ snobs lol. If I could afford it I would buy another one to give to a family member.

[@Blue-Collar-Radio]

Fair assessment. I apparently bought mine before the feet were included. He did offer to send me some, after basically calling me an idiot for thinking an iambic key would work with it 🤣, I declined. IMO, this would be a home run if it could use a Bluetooth keyboard (even one with a usb dongle) and if it could use an iambic key.

[@ztkspace5885]

Am I right in saying this can be a 'standalone' transciever? If so and direct hook up to coaxial antenna is possible, would you recommend an ATU to connect between the unit and antenna coax? Also, does it have mn and max power outputs and if so, what wattage is possible for TX?

[@jimvenable8253]

Overall, a pretty positive review of the DMX-40.

[@MarkTimblinvaperman]

I’m kinda in the same boat. My CW sucks, was in the process of relearning got hit with RA. Still want to do CW though.. at 66.. go figure.

[@rohnkd4hct260]

The radio is interesting.

[@timelord1137]

Forget about everything. Morse Code Ninja. That's all you need.

[@stevecolby6505]

How good was the decode compared to other cw decoders? Does it need a really strong S9 signal to work like most other cw decoders do? Can it decode weak signals? What if there are several cw signals near by, can it pick out just one of them?

[@K6UDA]

It didn’t need a particularly strong signal just a loud one. I did that with the AF gain.

[@daniellockhart8594]

So, you never take your 7300 out of CW mode? I’ve been listening in LSB, and then changing to CW to transmit, and it’s a real pain.

[@kurtbrauer855]

Bob it's nice but all with PC oriented I use Morse with my Ears like Marconi. Hi

[@K1OIK]

"Hi?"

[@hiflyer1825]

sending code is all rhythm. as a musician, sending dits and dahs spacing is like playing music....full notes and half notes...ya dee dah dee dah....

[@CliveDrone]

IMHO, the lack of support for a iambic (paddle) key is unforgivable in a QRP rig made in 2022(21 even). Stupid Stupid Stupid.

[@kennethblackwell1137]

When you said, you don't read manual and I presume didn't watch the videos. I turned this off. I have a MMX.....

[@K1OIK]

"if you're a CW guy", what a stupid comment considering what you are reviewing. That said his videos are better than most others that hams do.

[@K1OIK]

@@ZAR66 stop?

[@ztkspace5885]

......word.......you're never gonna get past 22wpm without RSI if using a straight key. Learn how to use a bug key sooner rather than later. You'll save yourself a whole world of pain.

[@JayN4GO]

People actually buy these?

[@kurt53641]

I did. I’m not interested or have the time to learn a new language. It’s a great little device

[@richardbutterfoss2353]

Thanks Buddy! 73 K2QXQ RWB🎉

[@jozefbezan2501]

Danke für das tolle Video.73,de Jozef OE1CJG.😊😊😊