Alan, That places you in my chronological age range - yes, I have my 50 year pin from ARRL too!
I believe you are referring to "Ultimatic" keying - the paddle that was last operated is the one that takes precedence - none of the "idiotic" alternating dots and dashes (which to me is confusing). Yes, I have tried to use Iambic, and have never been successful - I resort to 'slap keying' and/or a single lever paddle. Ultimatic was the first keying method introduced with the Ultimatic Keyer (a vacuum tube design), and it is a puzzle to me why it has not been continued - perhaps the Curtis chip popularization of Iambic ruined the best keying method available - not to mention the adoption of the Iambic B mode which adds an opposite element at the end of a character - initially that was a mistake by the Curtic designers. but they successfully sold it as an "enhancement". There is a cure. Take a look at the K12 keyer by K1EL which supports Ultimatic mode. Alternately, there was a fellow on the Elecaft reflector (about 6 months ago - maybe longer, my memory gets compressed with age) who developed both a logic gate and a pic implementation of an Ultimastic to Iambic converter. I have the parts on a perfboard for that, but have not yet finished it. Look in the archives because I have forgotten who it was that produced the design. BTW - I have lobbied Elecraft for inclusion of Ultimatic keying support for the K2 and the K3, but all I have gotten so far is a "maybe" - I guess Wayne is occupied with more important things to do than support us few "old farts" who remember and liked the Ultimatic keyer". 73, Don W3FPR Alan D. Wilcox wrote: > Hello, > > Fifty years ago I designed and built a tube keyer to replace my > Vibroplex. Then a transistor keyer. All this before the iambic keyers > came along ... > > Left paddle = dots > Right = dashes > Squeeze both paddles = dashes only. > > The technique I developed was to > 1. Always squeeze _both_ keys for dashes; if I was a bit late getting > the dash paddle closed, the logic turned the dot into a dash (as long as > the dot hadn't finished, of course.) > 2. If dots followed dashes, just simply let loose of the right paddle. > 3. A string of dots would turn into dashes simply by squeezing both > paddles together. > > I could send good CW at fairly-respectable speeds, and was happy. For > decades ... until I got the K2 and the K3. > > Then I tried to get the hang of iambic keying, and the best I can do is > slap-keying or stagger along at 10 wpm or slower iambic. > > Questions: > 1. Is there a way to kludge the K2 or K3 keying logic for squeeze keying? > 2. Does anyone make a keyer with my logic? WHO? All I've ever seen are > iambic. > 3. If neither, and I wind up building my new keyer myself, is this > something anybody else would want? > > Cheers, > Alan > > Alan D. Wilcox, W3DVX (K2-5373, K3-40) > 570-321-1516 > http://WilcoxEngineering.com > Williamsport, PA 17701 > > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
