CW Readers and CW Keyboards.

[James T. "Jim" Rogers, W4ATK]

KQ4BY wrote: "Has anyone used a CW Reader and/or CW keyboard with the K1?  I
would be
interested in hearing about your experiences.."

OM,
        CW readers are a compromise to be sure, the pocket sized ones as the MFJ
unit soon to come up for sale lack good filtering, one of the more
sophisticated units can produce acceptable results under "reasonable"
conditions, i.e. moderately quiet band, and no nearby strong interference.
The PLL used to demodulate the signal will lock on to the strongest signal.
I have used an old MFJ TNC that offered CW, SSB etc in the bargain with some
success, but abandoned it as I finally got my CW acuity up to the point
where I can copy a call sign in my head at 30wpm. Now if some LID tries to
burn me out, I just move on to a kinder gentler soul.
        There is a reader program that seems to do about as well as my TNC and that
is CWGET. Plug your receiver audio in to your sound card with appropriate
attention to levels etc. It is a free trial so download it and try it out. I
has a nice graphic display..... www.dxsoft.com/en/products/cwget/


73, Jim W4ATK
K2/100 #4028

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[Mike Morrow-3]

Larry asked:

>Has anyone used a CW Reader and/or CW keyboard with the K1

Larry,

The most sophisticated electronic CW reader will function very poorly in
comparison to even a very mediocre human CW reader.  They can be fun to try
on perfectly sent strong signals like that of the W1AW broadcasts.  Twenty
five years ago I used a HAL CW/RTTY/ASCII reader on CW just to produce hard
copy to a printer of strong, machine-sent Navy and merchant marine CW
broadcasts.  Unfortunately that was about all that the CW reader was good
at, and such interesting broadcasts are long gone.  That CW reader has been
in the attic for many years.

On the other hand, I find a CW keyboard to be very enjoyable.  While I
personally don't think it wise to neglect manual keying skills (including
use of a straight key), sending **decent** CW is far harder than copying it
above some modest speed.  A keyboard makes it easier for the operator on the
other end too.  I've not used one recently, since most of my HF operation is
portable, but they are very nice to use and any should work with the K1 with
the K1 keying mode sent to HAND mode.  The only drawback is that I don't
think you can program the K1's two CW memories by keying in HAND mode.

73,
Mike / KK5F

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