Morse Runner: Practise CW Contesting With a Pileup Simulator

Morse Runner is a contest simulator for CW operators. It puts you in the seat of a station calling CQ in a contest and sends you a stream of simulated callers, complete with fading, interference, static and the occasional confused operator. You copy the calls, send exchanges with the function keys and log the contacts, exactly as you would in a real contest. At the end it tells you how many contacts you made, how many of them were logged correctly, and what your rate was.

For anyone who wants to run stations in CW contests, it is one of the most effective training tools available, because it trains the skill that ordinary Morse practice does not: copying a call sign out of a pileup, under time pressure, while your hands drive a logging program. This guide covers what Morse Runner is, the original and Community Edition versions, the settings that matter, the keyboard workflow, and a practice plan that turns it from a game into real contest improvement.

What Morse Runner Is

The original program was written by Alex Shovkoplyas, VE3NEA, and is published on the DX Atlas Morse Runner page as freeware for Windows. The readme notes that it also works on Linux and Mac systems under Wine. The developer designed the audio to sound as realistic as possible, including effects based on a mathematical model of ionospheric propagation, so the signals fade and flutter in a way that feels like a real band rather than clean computer-generated Morse.

The program simulates the running side of a contest. You call CQ, stations answer, and you have to work them. Callers have different speeds, pitches and signal strengths, and some of them behave badly on purpose. That is the point: it trains you to cope with what a real pileup throws at you.

Morse Runner Community Edition

Over the years several developers extended Morse Runner independently. The Morse Runner Community Edition project on GitHub brings those efforts together and adds support for specific contests. According to the project page, supported contests include ARRL DX, CQ WPX, CQ WW and IARU HF internationally, ARRL Field Day, ARRL Sweepstakes and NCJ NAQP in North America, the JARL ALL JA and ACAG contests, and the CWops CWT, K1USN Slow Speed Test and High Speed Telegraphy formats. The project also aims to keep working with selected logging programs such as N1MM and DXLog.

The practical difference is the exchange. The original program practises a generic serial-number exchange. The Community Edition lets you practise the actual exchange of a contest you plan to enter, with realistic call signs and exchange data drawn from call history files, which makes the training much closer to the real event.

Run Modes

Morse Runner offers several ways to practise. Choosing the right one for your current level is the first step to useful training.

• Single Calls: one station answers each CQ. Ideal for learning the keyboard workflow and building copying speed without the stress of a pileup.
• Pile-Up: several stations answer at once, at different speeds and strengths. This is the core contest training mode.
• WPX Competition: a standardised session with all band conditions forced on, so scores can be compared with other operators.
• HST Competition: settings follow the IARU High Speed Telegraphy competition rules, with band conditions forced off.

The readme states that the default duration of a competition session is 60 minutes, and that it can be changed. For practice sessions, you choose the duration yourself in the minutes box. Short sessions of ten to fifteen minutes are often more productive than a full hour, because concentration stays high.

Band Conditions and Settings

The realism of Morse Runner comes from the band conditions you can switch on or off. Each one trains a different skill.

Other important settings include your own CW speed, the receiver bandwidth and the RIT, which the readme describes as the teal bar at the bottom of the screen. If you cannot hear a station calling slightly off frequency, moving the RIT can bring it into your passband, just as on a real radio. QSK simulates semi-duplex operation and lets you hear callers while you transmit, if you use QSK on your real station.

Start with conditions off and a low activity level, then add them one at a time. Switching everything on at once on the first day mainly trains frustration.

The Keyboard Workflow

Morse Runner uses the same function key layout as typical contest loggers, which is why skills transfer so well to a real contest. According to the readme, the main keys are:

• F1 sends CQ, F2 sends your full exchange, F3 sends TU.
• F8 sends NIL (not in log), and F12 sends NR? to ask for the exchange again.
• Enter works as Enter Sends Message: the message sent depends on the state of the contact.
• Insert or semicolon sends your full exchange, and plus or period sends TU and saves the contact.
• Space auto-completes and jumps between fields, and Escape stops your sending.
• Page Up and Page Down adjust your keying speed, the up and down arrows move the RIT, and the left and right arrows adjust the receive bandwidth.

The Enter key is the most important habit to build. In most modern contest loggers you can enable a similar Enter Sends Message mode, so practising it in Morse Runner makes your real contest flow smoother. If you use N1MM Logger+, our N1MM Logger+ setup guide explains how to set up the same function keys there.

Setting Up for Realistic Practice

A few minutes spent matching Morse Runner to your real station makes the practice transfer much better. Set the pitch to the CW sidetone and receive pitch you use on your radio, so your ear is trained on the same tone. Set the receive bandwidth to something close to the CW filter you normally use in a contest; a very wide setting makes copying in a pileup harder than it needs to be, while a very narrow one hides the callers who are slightly off frequency.

Use the same headphones you wear in a contest, at a comfortable volume, and sit at the same keyboard if you can. Typing on a laptop keyboard and then moving to a full-size keyboard on contest weekend is a surprisingly common source of errors. Finally, enter your own call sign in the Call field, so you hear and send the call you will actually use on the air. The readme also describes an audio recording option under the File menu, which is useful for listening back to a session and hearing exactly where a call went wrong.

Reading Your Score

At the end of a session Morse Runner shows how many contacts you logged and how many were verified as correct. The gap between the two numbers is the most important feedback the program gives. A high raw count with many errors means you are logging calls you did not really copy. In a real contest those become busted calls and lost points during log checking.

Look at the errors after each session. Common patterns include confusing similar characters, dropping a character from the end of a long call, and logging the stronger of two simultaneous callers with part of the weaker one’s call. Each pattern points to a specific drill.

The program also shows your rate during the session. Watch how it changes when you add band conditions or increase the activity. A rate that collapses when LIDs are switched on means you need more practice with control: sending a partial call, insisting on the station you chose, and ignoring callers who jump in.

A Practice Plan That Works

Morse Runner is most useful with a plan. Random sessions are fun, but structured practice builds the specific skills a contest needs. A simple progression:

1. Week one, Single Calls at a comfortable speed. Focus on the keyboard: F1, Enter, the plus key, and copying the call correctly the first time. Aim for zero errors, not speed.
2. Week two, Single Calls faster. Raise the caller speed a little each session. Your target speed is the speed of the contest you plan to enter.
3. Week three, Pile-Up with low activity. Two or three callers at once. Practise picking one call, or part of one, and working that station.
4. Week four, add conditions. QSB first, then QRN, then QRM and LIDs. Each one adds a layer of difficulty you will meet on the air.
5. Before a contest, use the contest exchange. In the Community Edition, select the contest you will enter and practise its exact exchange for several sessions.

Short daily sessions beat a single long weekly one. Ten or fifteen minutes of focused copying each day builds the automatic recognition that pileup copying depends on. If your basic Morse copying is not yet solid, start with our article on learning Morse code and building CW speed before diving into pileups.

Partial Calls and Pileup Control

The biggest difference between a casual CW operator and a good contest runner is how they handle a pileup. Morse Runner is excellent for practising the techniques that work on the air.

• Send a partial call. If you only copy part of a call, send that part with a question mark. The station whose call matches will answer, and others should stay quiet.
• Stick with your choice. Once you have picked a station, work it. Switching to a louder station halfway through rewards bad behaviour and slows you down.
• Use the full call when correcting. When the caller corrects their call, send it back in full so both of you know it is right.
• Keep your TU short. A crisp TU and your call sign keep the rate up and tell the pileup you are ready for the next station.

These habits are the same ones discussed in our guide to working a pileup. Practising them hundreds of times in Morse Runner makes them automatic when the real pileup arrives.

Other Ways to Train for CW Contests

Morse Runner is one tool among several. Each training method covers a slightly different skill:

• Call sign copying drills train you to copy a call sign at high speed in one go.
• Short on-air contests such as weekly CW sprints give real-world practice with real operators.
• Listening to contests as a receive-only exercise trains your ear to pick calls out of a busy band.
• Super check partial and call history files help in a real contest, but it is worth practising without them first so you rely on your ears. Our article on super check partial and call history files explains how they fit into a contest.

The Bottom Line

Morse Runner gives you a CW pileup whenever you want one. It simulates realistic band conditions, uses the same function key layout as contest loggers, and tells you honestly how many of your contacts were correct. The original program from VE3NEA remains a classic, and the Community Edition adds real contest exchanges so you can rehearse the event you plan to enter. Start with Single Calls and no band conditions, add speed and difficulty step by step, study your errors, and keep sessions short and regular. A few weeks of focused practice will show up directly in your rate and your log accuracy in the next CW contest.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Morse Runner available for Mac or Linux?

Morse Runner is a Windows program. Its readme notes that it works on Linux and Mac systems under Wine, and some users run it with compatibility tools such as Crossover on Mac.

What is the difference between Morse Runner and the Community Edition?

The original program practises a generic contest exchange. The Community Edition on GitHub combines later improvements and adds support for specific contests such as CQ WW, CQ WPX, ARRL DX and IARU HF, so you can practise their real exchanges.

Which mode should a beginner start with?

Start with Single Calls, with band conditions off and a comfortable speed. Move to Pile-Up mode with low activity once you can work single callers without errors.

How long should a practice session be?

Short sessions of ten to fifteen minutes work well because concentration stays high. Daily short sessions usually bring faster progress than one long session a week.

What do the score numbers mean?

Morse Runner shows the contacts you logged and how many were verified as correct. The difference between them shows how many calls or exchanges you logged incorrectly, which would become lost points in a real contest.

Does Morse Runner help with real contest software?

Yes. It uses the same function key layout and Enter Sends Message behaviour as typical contest loggers, so the keyboard habits transfer directly to programs such as N1MM Logger+.