With my P3 I observe many CW signals that are wide. And key clicks are
easily recognized. Likewise, transmit phase noise is also recognized as
some signals are wide and some are very narrow. Casual observations
seem to center on one particular brand of radio that is most prone to
have key clicks. I've owned 2 of them and both were plagued with key
clicks. On one CW net which I participate, one of the ops can send a
single dit or dah and I'll know exactly who it is. His signal is that
identifiable.
Yes, amps with slow relays are very prone to generate key clicks. Even
amps with vacuum relays with an accelerator circuit are often a bit
slow. One of the current, on the market, new amps selling today has a
switching time which I measured of about 15 ms. There is no way this amp
should be used in a QSK station operation or even a Semi-QSK unless the
delay time is extended out to 17 ms to 18 ms. That is one reason I
sold it and purchased a KPA500.
Some amps contain a circuit which prevents hot switching. However, if
the delay is not sufficient, the amp will not switch into transmit.
This amp also uses two lines between the amp and radio. One is the amp
command, and the other is the radio command which occurs after the amp
has switched. I've owned one of those and the matching radio and it is
a super combination for QSK operation.
I am also aware that several of the new ARRL Volunteer Monitor stations
have and are reporting those stations with wide signals and stations
with key clicks.
73
Bob, K4TAX
On 6/6/2020 8:00 PM, David Gilbert wrote:
QSK has everything to do with it. If you hot switch the amp you create
sharp waveforms every element even if the K3 keying is soft. The
discussion on the contesting forum included comments that the default
setting for TXDELAY on the K3 (apparently 008) isn't long enough and that
it should be set to 009. Not sure which amps were being considered.
73,
Dave AB7E
On Sat, Jun 6, 2020 at 5:40 PM John Simmons <jasimm...@pinewooddata.com>
wrote:
I have operated a number of the 'big' CW contests. I have heard some
really, really wide sigs with horrible key clicks. Yes they were
strong.... but 10 KHz wide? Rob Sherwood and others have written about
this. Some of the really high-end rigs (non-Elecraft) allow user
adjustment of CW rise time to such short values that key clicks are
guaranteed. Yech!
-de John NI0K
Fred Jensen wrote on 6/6/2020 7:05 PM:
True. TXDelay is a sequencing parameter to assure that downstream
switching has completed before RF appears. The keying waveform
[particularly the edges and "corners"] affect the sidebands and thus
bandwidth of the CW signal. I don't believe QSK has anything to do
with it, at least for a K3.
73,
Fred ["Skip"] K6DGW
Sparks NV DM09dn
Washoe County
On 6/6/2020 4:55 PM, N4ZR wrote:
There's a big discussion going on in contesting circles online about
the problem of key clicks. There's been a lot of discussion about
settings called things like TXDelay, but so far as I can tell (and
the manual confirms), the K3's TX delay is intended to protect
amplifier relays at the start of a transmission. So long as you
don't run QSK, I would think that setting would have no influence on
key clicks after the rise of the first CW element. True?
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