RE: Elecraft Digest, Vol 4, Issue 18

[Dudley Chapman]

Mode B, definitely.  As a teenage novice in the 60s, I had the same keyer
from Heathkit which was very mode B, for which I am thankful for because it
was from that "axe" that I got my "chops".  I built a dual paddle
arrangement for it by screwing two J4 straight keys onto opposite sides of a
small piece of vertical plywood.  Amazingly, the Heathkit circuit worked
like a modern keyer, with dot and dash memory, etc. (I am sure it had dot
memory, but not so sure about dash memory).  

My next keyer was one I build from the TTL logic design that was in the
handbook years ago.  I had made some mistake in the wiring that caused the
dot injection to be very aggressive and early in its timing.  It was a
fortunate error because it required even quicker reflexes but was even more
efficient.  

Actually, I would bet most people are Mode B'ers since the generation of
keyers built with the Curtis chip would default to mode B, I believe.

Nowadays, I even use auto character spacing, as well.   The keyer timing in
the K2 is very agreeable to my fist.  Either it is an accurate simulation of
mode B, or I am adaptable.  It's too hard to tell.

About ten years ago, I bought a Mercury paddle built by N2DAN himself (now
being reprised by Bencher, I believe).  I have come a long way from dual
J4's on plywood.  But then its been 40 years.

Dudley - WA1X


Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 11:48:14 -0400
From: "Dan Barker" <[hidden email]>
Subject: FW: [Elecraft] Iambic mode faux pas
To: "Elecraft" <[hidden email]>
Message-ID: <[hidden email]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I use mode B. A really doesn't work for me. I had an old, discrete logic
Heathkit keyer from the 70's which evidently was mode B - and that stuck!

Dan / WG4S / K2 #2456

<snip>
So how many mode "A"ers are there out there?  Am I the only mode B paddle
pusher?
</snip>

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[wa2dkg]

>I'm having some strange experiences aligning the K1 transmitter. After
following the procedure carefully, I put the radio in tune mode, and
properly tuned the inductors for the 30m band. I got a reading of p3.1. I
then started to tune the 20m band, which unfortunately showed p0.1. I
fiddled around with the inductors, but got no power output on this band.
I had a suspicion that the radio wasn't outputting any power, so I
returned to the 30m band, put the radio in tune mode again, and it turned
out that the power reading was now p0.1. I have attempted tuning and
retuning the radio for the past several days on both bands, and sometimes
I am successful. However, only minutes after a successful tuning session,
power output drops to 0.<


>If you have an older K1, they had a problem with the trimming capacitors
needing "set" in that the electrical contact was not up to par - so turn
them around about ten to twenty times. The newer K1's do not have this
problem - but it won't hurt to turn them anyway. Some people could not
align
them at all until they turned them 20 or so turns.<

Dave mentioned tuning the inductors on 20 and 30 meters...If it involves
tuning inductors, the K1 is a 2 band unit and does not have trimmer
capacitors...

Jerry, wa2dkg
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