I'm approaching my 60th year in ham radio and have a confession; I learned Morse
with my Boy Scout Handbook (still have it) by sight not sound. Consequently,
I've never been a very good CW op, although I have a 20 WPM Extra license. As a
Novice I used a Western Electric "Pole-Changer" straight key given to me by a
non-ham retired telegrapher friend, (That's still on the operating desk). I
never even tried a bug, but when I built my first Accu-Keyer I finally had some
help. I used it with a number of rigs and when the Accu-Memory came out I was
in heaven.
I build two of them at first and gave one to my friend George Badger, W6TC, who
liked it too. Then I built a third one for the heart of my meteor scatter/EME
station. With several handfulls of TTL logic I added a timer/sequencer that
used the power line as a time base to automatically control the station on the
various sequences used for MS and EME. Preamp switching/relay delay, TX delay,
etc were all timed by the keyer and the "canned" messages were in memory. All I
had to do was listen and select the next message as the QSO progressed. (That
one is still in my storage building too.)
Among its wonderful ergonomics the TS870 that I had before buying a K3 was an
Accu-Keyer emulation. I never had trouble sending CW with that rig. Enter the
K3 (and now a K3S). I can't even send my call gracefully. I was prepared to
buy the Idiom Press unit when they went out of business.
I would love Accu-Keyer emulation in my K3s.
Wes N7WS
On 5/15/2017 12:57 PM, GRANT YOUNGMAN wrote:
This is one of the things that has always bugged me about internal rig keyers
(Elecraft included). And as as result, I’ve almost never used them. I’ve been
using an Accu-Keyer (or emulator) for so long that nothing else is comfortable.
I moved from my original home brewed Accu-Keyer (which I still have, refuse to
part with, and occasionally use) to the enhanced Accu-Memory version, to an
MM-3 (with emulation — and still one of the best stand-alone keyers ever made)
to the Idiom Press CMOS 4 (with emulation) because of its small form factor.
It seems that something as basic as Accu-Keyer timing with auto-character (and
even auto-word) space isn’t exactly “rocket science”. So how about it
Elecraft? Accu-Keyer emulation would make a better than run-of-the-mill
update!! For the K3, KX3, KX2. And I wouldn’t have to carry the CMOS 4 in my
KX3 bag or fiddle with more cables on the table with the K3. I’m probably not
alone here, given the popularity of the Accu-Keyer. I can send better CW with
a bug than I can with paddles and an electronic keyer that lacks ACS. Maybe
it’s my (old) age or just practice ... :-)
But - it didn't have auto character spacing which came out with the WB4VVF
Accu-Keyer (hint-hint - so it's not OT after all).
Grant NQ5T
K3 #2091, KX3 #8342
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