Gary Sturm, N9IJB

n9ijb@arrl.net

A ham overcomes his physical limitations with a Dragon’s help.

I was diagnosed with a brain tumor in November of 2006. By the grace of God, my tumor was benign. The tumor did leave the fingers of my left hand stiff, without fine motor control and the sensation of touch. Typing was no longer possible with my left hand. I now type with my right hand with the aid of the accessibility features within Microsoft Windows XP.

During the past year, I have become interested in PSK31. I have read numerous articles and also downloaded several PSK31 operating programs. I finally decided to bite the bullet and try exploring operations using PSK31. Many contacts use macros for brief exchanges of signal and personal information. These macros could be typed ahead of time with my trustworthy right index finger.

I now use Peter Brown’s popular Ham Radio Deluxe suite of programs for PSK31 operation. At first, most of my contacts were quick and simple using the macros while interjecting occasional sentences typed with my right hand.

One evening, I answered a CQ from Fran Pesce, N1YBX, in New Hampshire. Fran was friendly and quite the “talker.” We chatted for nearly an hour. It was touch and go at times that night. I could barely type fast enough to keep up with Fran. I was totally exhausted when interference finally ended our contact and we had to sign off for the evening. My right hand was totally cramped. I know we both had a great time from the QSL cards we exchanged. It was a wonderful experience I’ll never forget.

Enter the Dragon

Several weeks later I received a call from Nuance Communications, from which I had previously purchased software. In the midst of our discussion, the salesperson asked if I had heard of their program Dragon Naturally Speaking. He explained that Dragon was a speech recognition program that recognizes a person’s words as spoken into a microphone and translates these words into text on a computer screen. No hands are required, except to operate the program and make occasional corrections. One must remember that Dragon is a machine, not a human, so it has difficulties understanding our speech or discerning which word we mean; that is, their or there, etc.

The cost was $99, including a tethered headset. I snapped it right up without much thought. The software arrived within a few days and was promptly loaded onto my ThinkPad. The software first reviewed my document files and my e-mail files to add my common word usage to its vocabulary and to learn my speech patterns. Dragon is preset to start recognizing our American accent whether you’re from Chicago or Tennessee.

Dragon had me read text from comedy by Dave Barry to technical jargon by Dogbert from the Dilbert cartoon series. Specialty words can be added and other words may be deleted from its vocabulary to tailor Dragon to your speech.

Nuance offers a package including Bluetooth for an additional $150, but the cost was prohibitive. Besides, I didn’t plan on wandering 30 feet from my ICOM IC-746PRO while operating PSK31. Thus, I passed on this offer.

Of course, there is a little bit of geek in every ham, isn’t there? I was soon scouring eBay for a Bluetooth transmitter and Bluetooth receiver dongle [adapter — Ed.] for my computer.

I required a headset with a good noise-cancelling microphone and after searching found a recertified Plantronics Voyager 510 Bluetooth headset that fit the bill. The price was $30 with free shipping. I think the free shipping was one of its better selling points. I spared no expense on the dongle either. It cost $1.70 with free shipping from Hong Kong. A cost of $31.70 got me Bluetooth. I could buy a new handheld transceiver with the money I saved. Of course, my spouse wants me to sell a handheld transceiver I don’t use. Maybe I can talk her into earning a Technician class license? Who knows?

When the equipment arrived, I charged the earpiece for 3 hours, plugged in the dongle, brought up Dragon, set it for Bluetooth mode and everything fired right up the first time.

Before using Dragon, remember to use the microphone volume and speech clarity wizards. The accuracy of the text displayed as you speak is best when these wizards are fine-tuned each time you use Dragon. It’s best to speak in one continuous sentence and not short, interrupted segments. I have Dragon set for the “most accuracy” mode and I try to enunciate clearly and speak slowly, but I’ll never speak the way Walter Cronkite did.

Other Voice Recognition Options

Other voice recognition options I have found are:

• Dragon Dictate for Mac (based on Dragon)

• Vista and Windows 7 have built-in voice recognition systems and are Bluetooth capable.

These need greater training than Dragon does. Dragon has 100,000+ words in its vocabulary and adds additional words from your e-mail and document files automatically.

The Vista and Windows7 speech recognition softwares are slower than Dragon at word translation. One review states that the Vista and Windows7 speech recognition softwares lack the extensive command functions that Dragon includes.

These three additional products are the only ones I could find. I use XP Professional, so Vista and Windows 7 voice recognition features are new to me. Office 2003 featured voice recognition in its Word product. It was not accurate, very slow, required much training to be at all useful and was just usable within Word. It was not useful to me at all — it was too clunky.

Talk and Type

Today long-winded contacts don’t bother me on PSK31. I just “talk” my way through them. No one even knows! I was “talking” to George Ralph, K6SIP, and informed him how I was typing to him. He couldn’t believe voice recognition software was so advanced.

You’re now probably wondering why I just don’t work SSB and forget PSK31. PSK31 was new to me and I wanted to operate this mode. I had an obstacle that made smooth PSK31 operations difficult. Of course, if we can’t try new ways of doing things then we aren’t doing our part to be good Amateur Radio operators.

I’m a ham radio operator who won’t let my infirmity get in the way of my enjoying a new mode of Amateur Radio. All hams enjoy technology and this has been my way to enjoy PSK31. Hams with physical challenges may be interested in using Dragon to assist them in overcoming their situation to operate PSK31. Many physically challenged hams have limited arm and hand movements, but speak well. PSK31 program macros can be preprogrammed and I do believe accessed by Dragon. I’m still learning all the features of the program. A mouse is all that is needed to direct the start point of the text and to start or stop the microphone.

The average ham may use Dragon for the challenge, just for the ease of operation or just because they like to ragchew and just can’t type fast enough to keep up with others in the contact.

I certainly hope to “talk” to you soon on PSK1.

Gary Sturm, N9IJB, an ARRL member, first became a ham in 1988 when he passed the Novice test and was assigned KB9BXL while living in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Gary upgraded to Technician Plus in 1999 and opted to get the new call sign N9IJB. It is easy to remember. The phonetics are Ninety-Nine-Indiana-Jelly-Beans.

Gary passed his General class exam in 2001 and in 2002 obtained his Extra class license. He erected a 10-15-20 combo Isotron for HF work together with a dc shunted coaxial dipole for 10 meters. In the fall of 2007 he replaced the Isotrons with a new GAP Eagle 10-40 meter vertical dipole. He has an ICOM IC-746PRO connected to the GAP Eagle with the 2 meter jack connected to a Diamond F23A, 2 meter vertical. He uses a 6 meter Isotron with the ’PRO.

Gary currently has a Yaesu FT-7800 2 meter/70 cm mobile in the house connected to a Diamond X300A vertical, a Yaesu FT-1802M mobile in his van and another in his shack connected to a “Ventenna.”

Gary’s other hobbies include railfanning, railroad photography, model railroading and just having the general love of trains. He wrote the Compendium of American RR Radio Frequencies book listing all the railroad radio frequencies and their exact uses for 21 years. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University and is now retired. Gary can be reached at P O Box 10, Leo, IN 46765-0010.