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Re: keying ration control

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dw-4

Re: keying ration control

Thanks Steve for mentioning this.
Its been one of my frustrations as a cw op.
I finally ended up programming my own PIC keyer in order to get my last
rig (non elecraft) RF output right.
There are no manufactured keyers that provide separate dit/dah/space
ratio control.
The Curtis chip ratio schema is the most widely followed because it is
cheap to implement.

Before rolling my own, I talked to one designer who provides updates for
his keyer device.
And he got all holier-than-thou on me when he understood that I wanted
width control for all three elements.

My last cw rig utilizes the Curtis weighting schema and the dits were
too short and the dahs too long.
So with this adjustment schema, it was just not possible to get a
satisfactory product.

Now watch me step off my soap box and slip on a banana peel! :^D

I see that the K3 can delay RF generation before keying the amp relay
but
what about, upon key up, delaying amp delay until RF ceases? How is
this
accomplished. Is it included?
2. The K3's keyer is excellent but it's a ratio adjustment, not weight
as
indicated. The dit length or heaviness is non adjustable. This is like
most
JA rigs and is really strange. Why would anyone want long dahs like a
bug? A
real weight control shortens both dits and dahs equally and makes
overall
keying sound more choppy or heavier. Although the K3's weight is about
right, some of us would prefer lighter weight for high speed and heavy
weight for bad conditions. This goes way back to the early days of
Morse.
Steve Ellington
--
[hidden email]

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WILLIS COOKE

Re: keying ration control

My MESCO (Manhatten Electric Supply Company) Key built circla 1910 has infinite dit-dah space ratio control. Manual of course.

Willis 'Cookie' Cooke
K5EWJ

--- On Fri, 4/17/09, dw <[hidden email]> wrote:

> From: dw <[hidden email]>
> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] keying ration control
> To: "Elecraft_List" <[hidden email]>
> Date: Friday, April 17, 2009, 10:48 AM Before rolling my own, I talked to one designer who
>
> Thanks Steve for mentioning this.
> Its been one of my frustrations as a cw op.
> I finally ended up programming my own PIC keyer in order to
> get my last
> rig (non elecraft) RF output right.
> There are no manufactured keyers that provide separate
> dit/dah/space
> ratio control.

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Steve Ellington

Re: keying ration control

Ok...The keyer issue is a dead duck. Once I recovered from my temporary
insanity I realized I was thinking of my IC-7000.
BTW: The best antenna for CW is a Windom. The dits and dahs automatically
flow to the appropriate side of the feedpoint which insures proper
transmission ratio. Just be certain your Windom is fed at the 1/3 point. If
both receiving and transmitting stations are using Windoms, fading is
virtually eliminated. One should take care to install the wire parallel to
the ground otherwise dits or dahs will be missing, depending on the
direction of the slant.
Steve Ellington
[hidden email]
----- Original Message -----
From: "WILLIS COOKE" <[hidden email]>
To: "Elecraft_List" <[hidden email]>; "dw" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 1:53 PM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] keying ration control

>
> My MESCO (Manhatten Electric Supply Company) Key built circla 1910 has
> infinite dit-dah space ratio control. Manual of course.
>
> Willis 'Cookie' Cooke
> K5EWJ
>
>
> --- On Fri, 4/17/09, dw <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> From: dw <[hidden email]>
>> Subject: Re: [Elecraft] keying ration control
>> To: "Elecraft_List" <[hidden email]>
>> Date: Friday, April 17, 2009, 10:48 AM Before rolling my own, I talked to
>> one designer who
>>
>> Thanks Steve for mentioning this.
>> Its been one of my frustrations as a cw op.
>> I finally ended up programming my own PIC keyer in order to
>> get my last
>> rig (non elecraft) RF output right.
>> There are no manufactured keyers that provide separate
>> dit/dah/space
>> ratio control.
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html

Vic K2VCO

Re: keying ration control

In reply to this post by dw-4

dw wrote:

> Before rolling my own, I talked to one designer who provides updates for
> his keyer device.
> And he got all holier-than-thou on me when he understood that I wanted
> width control for all three elements.
>
> My last cw rig utilizes the Curtis weighting schema and the dits were
> too short and the dahs too long.
> So with this adjustment schema, it was just not possible to get a
> satisfactory product.

In perfect CW, spaces and dits should be the same length. Dahs are supposed to be 3 times
the length of a dit.

A weight control varies the dit:sapce ratio. Since most keyers base the length of dahs on
the dits, it also varies the dah:space ratio.

It's not too hard to get a keyer to close a circuit with the proper ratios. The
complexities crop up when you connect it to a transmitter.

Some transmitters shorten all keyed elements by a fixed amount, say 3 ms. If your keyer
produces perfect code, then you will have two problems: both the dits and dahs will be a
bit short (insufficient weight) and the ratio between the dits and dahs will not be 3:1,
because the shortening is a greater percentage of a dit than of a dah.

The problem will get worse as speed increase because the shortening will be a greater
percentage of both dits and dahs.

If you only have a weight control, you can't fix this. If you adjust it so that the dits
are right, the dahs will be a bit long. Say the dit was supposed to 50 ms lon but the
transmitter shortened them to 47. Then you adjust the weight control for 50 ms dits again.
That means the circuit is actually closed for 53 ms on a dit, and 159 ms for a dah. When
the transmitter shortens the dahs by 3 ms., they come out 156 instead of 150!

You could solve this by having separate adjustments for dit:space ratio (weight) and
dit:dah ratio. But this would only work for a single speed.

The simplest solution is to implement keying compensation, where you can have the keyer
add a fixed amount to each keyed element -- in this case 3 ms -- regardless of speed.

This is what the Idiom Press keyers do. In addition to a weight setting there is a
compensation setting. You set the compensation to undo whatever your transmitter does, and
then set the weight according to your personal preferences.

--
73,
Vic, K2VCO
Fresno CA
http://www.qsl.net/k2vco
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n7ws

Re: keying ration control

In reply to this post by Steve Ellington

--- On Fri, 4/17/09, Steve Ellington <[hidden email]> wrote:
[snip]

The best antenna for CW is a Windom. The dits and dahs
> automatically
> flow to the appropriate side of the feedpoint which insures
> proper
> transmission ratio. Just be certain your Windom is fed at
> the 1/3 point. If
> both receiving and transmitting stations are using Windoms,
> fading is
> virtually eliminated.

Only true if the two antennas are parallel to each other with the respective side lengths matched. Otherwise there will be cross-polarization loss, which in theory is infinite, but in practice can be 20 dB or more.

In this case I use the same solution that was used by old Western Union telegraphers. This is a "Pole Changing" key that inverts the characters, so dots became character spaces and dashes became letter spaces, and vice versa.

If both stations are in the same hemisphere, the receiving operator will have to stand on his head if he's copying by ear, but modern decoding software can handle this nicely. (Perhaps this option can be "put on the list" at Elecraft.) If the stations are located in opposite hemispheres, this is unnecessary.

My key, was made by J.H.Bunnell and given to me when I was a kid, by a guy who had actually used it at W.U.

http://chss.montclair.edu/~pererat/1458.jpg (Mine is in much better shape)

What a marriage; a 20th Century ham keying a 21st Century radio with a 19th Century key and technology.

Wes Stewart N7WS

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Bob Nielsen-2

Re: keying ration control

Keying with the left foot will have the same pole changing effect.

On Apr 17, 2009, at 1:44 PM, Wes Stewart wrote:

>
>
> --- On Fri, 4/17/09, Steve Ellington <[hidden email]> wrote:
> [snip]
>
> The best antenna for CW is a Windom. The dits and dahs
>> automatically
>> flow to the appropriate side of the feedpoint which insures
>> proper
>> transmission ratio. Just be certain your Windom is fed at
>> the 1/3 point. If
>> both receiving and transmitting stations are using Windoms,
>> fading is
>> virtually eliminated.
>
> Only true if the two antennas are parallel to each other with the
> respective side lengths matched. Otherwise there will be cross-
> polarization loss, which in theory is infinite, but in practice can
> be 20 dB or more.
>
> In this case I use the same solution that was used by old Western
> Union telegraphers. This is a "Pole Changing" key that inverts the
> characters, so dots became character spaces and dashes became
> letter spaces, and vice versa.
>
> If both stations are in the same hemisphere, the receiving operator
> will have to stand on his head if he's copying by ear, but modern
> decoding software can handle this nicely. (Perhaps this option can
> be "put on the list" at Elecraft.) If the stations are located in
> opposite hemispheres, this is unnecessary.
>
> My key, was made by J.H.Bunnell and given to me when I was a kid,
> by a guy who had actually used it at W.U.
>
> http://chss.montclair.edu/~pererat/1458.jpg (Mine is in much better
> shape)
>
> What a marriage; a 20th Century ham keying a 21st Century radio
> with a 19th Century key and technology.
>
> Wes Stewart N7WS
>
>
>
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________
> Elecraft mailing list
> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
> Post: mailto:[hidden email]
>
> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html

AC7AC

Re: keying ration control

In reply to this post by WILLIS COOKE

CONTENTS DELETED

The author has deleted this message.

dw-4

Re: keying ration control

In reply to this post by Vic K2VCO

Thanks Vic,
I should take a look at the Idiom Press devices.
Can't hurt to have one more keyer ;^D

On Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:26 -0700, "Vic K2VCO" <[hidden email]> wrote:

> dw wrote:
>
> > Before rolling my own, I talked to one designer who provides updates for
> > his keyer device.
> > And he got all holier-than-thou on me when he understood that I wanted
> > width control for all three elements.
> >
> > My last cw rig utilizes the Curtis weighting schema and the dits were
> > too short and the dahs too long.
> > So with this adjustment schema, it was just not possible to get a
> > satisfactory product.
>
> In perfect CW, spaces and dits should be the same length. Dahs are
> supposed to be 3 times
> the length of a dit.
>
> A weight control varies the dit:sapce ratio. Since most keyers base the
> length of dahs on
> the dits, it also varies the dah:space ratio.
>
> It's not too hard to get a keyer to close a circuit with the proper
> ratios. The
> complexities crop up when you connect it to a transmitter.
>
> Some transmitters shorten all keyed elements by a fixed amount, say 3 ms.
> If your keyer
> produces perfect code, then you will have two problems: both the dits and
> dahs will be a
> bit short (insufficient weight) and the ratio between the dits and dahs
> will not be 3:1,
> because the shortening is a greater percentage of a dit than of a dah.
>
> The problem will get worse as speed increase because the shortening will
> be a greater
> percentage of both dits and dahs.
>
> If you only have a weight control, you can't fix this. If you adjust it
> so that the dits
> are right, the dahs will be a bit long. Say the dit was supposed to 50 ms
> lon but the
> transmitter shortened them to 47. Then you adjust the weight control for
> 50 ms dits again.
> That means the circuit is actually closed for 53 ms on a dit, and 159 ms
> for a dah. When
> the transmitter shortens the dahs by 3 ms., they come out 156 instead of
> 150!
>
> You could solve this by having separate adjustments for dit:space ratio
> (weight) and
> dit:dah ratio. But this would only work for a single speed.
>
> The simplest solution is to implement keying compensation, where you can
> have the keyer
> add a fixed amount to each keyed element -- in this case 3 ms --
> regardless of speed.
>
> This is what the Idiom Press keyers do. In addition to a weight setting
> there is a
> compensation setting. You set the compensation to undo whatever your
> transmitter does, and
> then set the weight according to your personal preferences.
>
> --
> 73,
> Vic, K2VCO
> Fresno CA
> http://www.qsl.net/k2vco

--
[hidden email]

______________________________________________________________
Elecraft mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:[hidden email]

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