<\/span>By Dan Romanchik, KB6NU<\/p>\n I have had an Amazon Alexa<\/a> for nearly a year now. Mostly, I just use it to listen to internet radio stations or tell me a joke, but I think it has more potential than that. For example, I\u2019ve written before about how I\u2019d like to develop an Alexa skill<\/a> to control my IC-7300. I haven\u2019t gotten around to that yet, but, Joe, N3HEE, has just published an Alexa skill called Continuous Wave<\/a>. It\u2019s designed to help you learn Morse Code.<\/p>\n To use this skill, you have to first enable it. Once enabled, say, \u201cAlexa, open Continuous Wave.\u201d This opens the skill at the main menu. You can then say any of the following at any voice prompt\u2026<\/p>\n I\u2019ve just played around with this app for a short time, but I’ve found it to be quite entertaining. It does, however, have one big drawback. You can\u2019t set the speed. It\u2019s currently limited to sending at 20 words per minute only.<\/p>\n Also, the learn function could use a little refining. When you give the command \u201clearn,\u201d it asks you for a character, sends that character three times, and then asks you for another. If you could set the speed at which the skill sends characters, it could teach a character like the K7QO Code Course, first sending the character slowly, then ramping up the speed.<\/p>\n Overall, though, I think this is a great first shot at a usable Alexa skill for teaching Morse Code. I hope this is the first of many versions of this skill.<\/p>\n Other ham radio skills<\/b><\/p>\n While I was poking around on Amazon, I decided to see what other amateur radio skills might be available. Here are a few that I found:<\/p>\n Building your own voice app<\/b><\/p>\n The Continuous Wave Alexa skill was developed using tools found at VoiceApps.Com<\/a>. Two other websites\u2014Pullstring<\/a> and StoryLine<\/a>\u2014also have tools to help you build voice apps. And, Amazon has an online tutorial<\/a> that will teach you how to build an Alexa app. I’m just getting started with these tools, so I can’t recommend one over the others, but they do look like they’ll make developing voice apps easier.<\/p>\n\n
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