Let your fingers do the talking...

Let them play different instruments

Keys left to right
Nye Viking, Kent Hand key, Vibroplex Original Bug, N3ZN ZN-QRP paddle, Palm Single paddle

My collection of keys has grown over the past few months and I find that I like each for their particular qualities.

Keys from left to right

The Nye Viking is somewhere between a traditional J-38 low style American key and a tall European style.  At first I couldn't get any sort of coordination with it even after a couple hours of practice and it stayed in the closet for a few months.  Eventually I wanted to leave a key hooked up to the old Century/21 so I didn't have to move the output of my external keyer so the Viking came back out.  I've finally become accustomed to it and am even beginning to enjoy it as much as the Kent.  I'm amazed at how different two straight keys can be.

The Kent Hand key continues to be my favorite key for straight key operation.  The Kent is operated using your entire arm off the desk and when I send using it above 15wpm I get the entire desk shaking with the motion.  My desk light starts casting dancing shadows across the equipment from the vibration and with the clacking of the key and the blare of the sidetone the world of CW becomes visceral.

The Vibroplex Bug remains at the center of the collection because I have some strange affinity for the quirky bug.  I use it on every QSO where I hear another bug operator or with SKCC operators that are sending faster than 17wpm.  It has a non-cosmetic, yet effective, weight added from an old steel spacer to slow it down to a range of 21wpm to 16wpm and some dental floss around the DIT contact spring to reduce the potential bounce which results in scratchy sounding DITS.

The N3ZN ZN-QRP paddle is a work of art and when I'm working higher speed CW it's my go-to key.  The carbon fiber finger pieces and lightweight clickety action always puts a smile on my face.  I keep it connected to the external Ham Keyer which has a handy knob to for quickly adjusting keyer speed.

The Palm Single to the right is magnetically mounted to a steel base a friend made for me. I pull it off the base when I go portable as it's my go-to key for all my portable operations.  But when I'm at the home station I leave it hooked up to the keyer input on the Ten-Tec Eagle because the Eagle's keyer is only Iambic-B mode and I just can't get used to "B-Mode".  Using a single, non-iambic paddle eliminates the weird timing of the B iambic mode.  I really should learn mode-B since it seems to be standard on Ten-Tec and Kenwood radios. 

The 3 stars in the center are the Kent Hand key, Vibroplex Original Bug and the N3ZN paddle

The 3 keys in the middle (Kent Hand key, Vibroplex Bug and N3ZN paddle) remain hooked up to the Ham Keyer and I move the output of that keyer to whichever rig I'm primarily using at the time.  That keyer uses Iambic-Mode-A which I'm comfortable with and it debounces the scratchiness of the Bug.  I hook the output of the keyer up to either the PTT line on the Eagle or the secondary key input on the KX3.  When using the C21 I just use the Nye straight key.

Debouncing a Vibroplex Bug

Side story on the Bug... If you get a Vibroplex bug and hook it up to the PTT line of your radio you may find that you're missing DITS or that the output sounds broken or scratchy.  The PTT line of many radios is not "buffered" meaning it is reacting to every contact closure.  On a bug, the DIT contact is actually bouncing potentially hundreds of times a second since the contact force is so light and doesn't make a clean closure.  Many keyers will filter out those multiple contacts or bounces.  My old HAM KEYER weight control actually serves as a DIT weight control for the manual keys as well so it's ideal for use with the bug.

KE6EE offered me this nice explanation of what was going on:

The more usual term for the process of dealing with problems of contact closure is "debouncing." Google and you will find lots of interesting visuals and explanations.

The actual start and finish of contact closures and openings in switches, relays and keys, is not a simple off-and-on process but a series of "bounces." Dit contact closures on a bug are likely to be very bouncy. 

Bug dit contact design and bug maintenance and adjustment are critical for minimizing bounce. Ops with Vibroplex-style dit contacts often put a piece of rubber or plastic foam in the U-shaped dit contact spring. The Begali bug uses a unique pointed and spring-loaded dit contact. Many bug ops, from my observations on the air, do not adjust their dit weight properly to minimize a scratchy sound.

Transmitter keying circuits are usually "debounced" in various ways, the simplest perhaps being to put a capacitor across the key contact circuit. A PTT circuit doesn't need to be debounced so it isn't. Keyers often have debounce circuits designed to be used with straight keys and bugs.

Try different keys

So if you are getting into CW try some different keys.  I think you'll be surprised by the differences and find that your mood or situation will dictate the use of one key over another.   Morse keys on the used market aren't expensive if you shop carefully so you can build quite a collection.  They also tend to hold their value if you find that you've obtained a key or two that you just can't grok.

My ever changing station sporting a spiffy new chair

 That's all for now

So lower your power and raise your expectations

73
Richard, AA4OO

Peanut whistle

The Elecraft KX2

Steve (WG0AT) published a video demonstrating Elecraft's newest QRP radio.  

The tiny KX2.

I'm sure there will be more news about this new wonder-rig from Elecraft announced at Hamvention this week.

Specs

That's all for now

So lower your power and raise your expectations

72/73
Richard, AA4OO
http://hamradioqrp.com

Listen to the music

Comparing CW audio 

The Elecraft KX3 and the Ten-Tec Eagle

The bands were very poor today from my home and finding stations to operate were few and far between, especially at QRP power.  So I thought I'd take a break from operating and create a brief video demonstrating the CW audio differences between the Ten-Tec Eagle and the Elecraft KX3.

The radios

The Elecraft KX3 and Ten-Tec Eagle don't have much in common apart from having DSP architectures and both being from American radio manufacturers.  The Eagle is devoid of bells, whistles and has no-menus.  On the Eagle, what you see is all you get, as opposed to the KX3 which has multiple kitchen sinks stuffed into it's tiny enclosure. 

Setup

Both radios have their pre-amps off and DSP bandwidth set to 500 Hz.  I have the RF gain reduced by about 15dB on each radio since turning up the RF gain on a noisy day like today just makes for white noise.  

During the video I operated the NR (noise reduction) button on the Eagle to demonstrate how it makes a signal pop and in the same manner operate the APF (audio peaking filter) on the KX3.  I end the demonstration by reducing the DSP bandwidth down to about 100 Hz on each radio.  The Eagle has both 600 Hz and a 300 Hz IF filters so it gets a bit of insertion loss when I pass through the 300 Hz setting.  There were no adjacent signals so the IF filtering wasn't doing anything for either radio in this case.

The audio from the Eagle is coming from its built-in speaker, while on the KX3 I'm using an iHome external, self-powered, speaker.  The KX3 has an abysmal internal speaker and there's little point in trying to listen to it compared to a radio with a real speaker.  In my opinion that speaker is one of the few serious flaws in the KX3.  

After I shot the video I realized that there was a bit of a bias against the Eagle's audio because the microphone in the camera was below the top of the Eagle's case and thus wasn't directly hearing the cabinet speaker, whereas it was in direct view of the external speaker connected to the KX3.  The Eagle's audio sounds crisper than this in person when your ears have a straight shot to the speaker.

Subjective listening

Audio is a very subjective thing because people can hear the same thing very differently so I won't comment on my opinion on which I prefer.

I would however be curious to hear other's opinions.

That's all for now

So lower your power and raise your expectations

73/72

Rich, AA4OO

http://hamradioqrp.com

Twisted dummy

Improving the ugly dummy load

A few months back I built an ugly dummy load using the simplest method I could...

I soldered 20 2watt 1k ohm resistors across two pieces of romex wire and soldered it to a UHF connector.  Voila, had a 50ohm dummy load effective for extended QRP use and brief bursts of QRO power.  But as I analyzed the balun and noted in the previous post, some capacitance due to the simplistic design made it less than perfect at higher frequencies.

I got to thinking that the capacitance might be lessened by making those two antenna looking pieces of wire used in the balun into a different shape.

Croissant Balun

Twist and shout

So I twisted the parallel wires of the balun into a concentric loop  like a croissant and the result was promising.  Reactance is a bit less from 20m through 15m resulting in the SWR remaining as flat as my MFJ commercial balun.

Think like a Thermian - Never Give up, Never Surrender
Yes, I have an odd choice in favorite movies

So when you have a project that doesn't work quite as expected keep the little grey cells churning.  You'll likely come up with some alternatives. If someone who understands RF can explain to me why this helped I'd like to know. 

This ugly balun is going fellow Ham who is getting back into the hobby following a hiatus and is in need of a balun.  This balun is still not ideal but it's become more useable and the parts cost less than $10.


That's all for now

So lower your power and raise your expectations

73/72
Richard, AA4OO
http://hamradioqrp.com

Not all things are QRP

This is not a QRP antenna rotor

Another Saturday morning working at the Excalibur antenna site...  Dick (N4HAY) and I were doing more maintenance on the tower. Part of that effort was to determine why the mast rotor had stopped working.

Paul (AA4XX) and Dick had cranked the tower down and lowered it to ground the previous weekend to remove the beam and gain access to the rotor.  

Mast rotor is a prop-pitch motor from a WW2 aircraft

The rotor is an old prop pitch motor from a WW2 aircraft so it's both heavy and heavy duty but it wasn't turning the mast. The motor was firmly attached via a number of rusted and inaccessible bolts. At first we weren't sure we'd be able to free it from the tower but after an hour of copious application of WD40 and slowly working the blots back and forth we were able to liberate it to freedom.

Once the motor was free we saw that the thrust bearing for the mast was seized.  That will be addressed in a coming weekend.  Until then Dick tested the rotor on the bench and found it still functioning so that was good news.  

Dick recorded a brief video showing that the rotor was alive albeit moving a bit slowly with only 12v powering it.

Taking turns with QRPp

Dick and I took turns fighting the bolts holding the rotor while the other worked 40m using the 1Watter I built.   Band conditions weren't the best and we had the feed line to the doublet crossing some elevated counterpoise wires installed for the 160m antenna so antenna access to the 40m/80m Doublet wasn't ideal as we still focus our work on the shack and tower.

There was considerable DX chasing going on which made finding an opening in the narrow tuning range of the 1Watter a challenge.  I did managed a 559 report from a station in WV.  I managed some ?? responses from a few stations but didn't work anyone else.  I need to work on the feed line situation before using the 1Watter there next time.

That's all for now

So lower your power and raise your expectations

72/73
Richard, AA4OO

You have two ears but only one mouth

Listen more than you send

In honor of Mothers Day this weekend here in the U.S. we recall what our wise Mothers told us... 

Listen more than you talk because God gave you two ears but only one mouth

Learning CW is more about learning to copy what you hear than sending.  So listen, listen, listen.

Listening to on air CW QSOs using your own HF radio... 

Of course the best CW copy practice comes while listening to stations using your own HF radio and having on-air QSOs. So make the most of your opportunities to listen to live QSOs from your home station.

Find conversations that are at different speeds for your practice copy.  In my experience, when I only practice copying higher speed CW for a time, my ability to recognize slower CW gets rusty so practice copying all speeds.  I was worked by a station some months back when I was sending at only 13wpm who came back on the second exchange and replied that I was too slow to copy and he quit the QSO.  I don't want to be like that.  

Along with copying QRS stations, practice copying stations that are well above your comfortable copy speed in order to stretch yourself. You will likely miss much of the conversation but your ability to start recognizing common words and abbreviations will increase. Another side effect I find is that when I listen to a 25wpm (well above my present copy speed) exchange between two operators who have equally strong signals, I'll usually copy one station better than the other.  I try to figure out why that's the case.  Something about that operator's style is easier to copy and when I discern why that is, I try to emulate it.

I want to be able to copy all speeds of CW; both to encourage new QRS operators and ragchew with the QRQ old-timers.

On Air Practice

Listen to on air CW QSOs using remote radios

When you don't have hands-on access to an HF radio or when propagation is poor at your QTH web SDR stations are great resources for CW copy practice. 

Web SDR stations are accessible from http://websdr.org and allow you to listen to CW anytime you have access to the internet.   Web SDR stations are available from around the world, potentially from countries you haven't been able to regularly hear from your QTH.  So it allows you to hear different sending styles from around the world.

Web SDR station

Listen to machine generated CW

When live CW is unavailable you still have machine generated CW as an option.  Practice copy of machine generated CW is a pale comparison to actual CW QSOs but it has it's uses and it's always available.  The Morse Trainer App for Android devices offers most features standard in other learning applications plus a built-in list of randomized top English words and an e-book reader.

Morse Trainer app for Android

Sights and sounds

This following video demonstrates the copy methods above.

So listen more than you send and your CW copy, as well as your interpersonal skills, will improve with practice at listening.

That's all for now

So lower your power and raise your expectations

73/72

Richard, AA4OO
http://hamradioqrp.com

Beep Beep - No not the Road Runner

Practice sending CW

Let's turn back the wheel of time a bit.  This entry is about how I practiced Morse Code earlier in in my CW Journey.  

My first key was a MFJ-557 practice oscillator.  I used to set it on the center console of my vehicle and practice sending code while I drove when I first practiced for my General ticket 9 years ago.  

More recently I used it as my straight key when I restarted my CW journey 9 months ago.  I compared it to my Kent Straight key back in September.

MFJ-557 Practice key with a 2m/70cm SWR Power meter as a background prop

The practice oscillator doesn't have to be used with the less than stellar, check that, absolutely terrible, Philmore straight key attached to it.  You can wire the ocillator to other straight keys or any manual key providing a radio-free way to practice your code anywhere you wish.

However, practicing with paddles is more complicated and requires the use of an external keyer or a radio with an internal keyer set to not transmit.

Your electronic teacher

You may think you're the bomb when it comes to sending code but it could be that you are bombing out on sending code others can copy.  You need an objective critic.

Morse Code Reader App

I use the Morse Code Reader to check what I send.  It isn't perfect but it's a good portable solution to act as your Morse Code critic.

Demonstration

Here is a video demonstrating use of an MFJ-557 practice oscillator with your standard manual keys.  Additionally I address configuring your HF rig's built-in keyer to practice with a paddle.

NOTE: I mistakenly say in the video that I have the keys wired in series.  That's not correct. They are wired in parallel.

Practice, practice, practice

It is better to send good code than receive

That's all for now...

So lower your power and raise your expectations

72/73
Richard, AA4OO