Doug,
All is well that Iambic B meets your needs, but it is not for everyone,
even though we may be the minority. I need either a single lever paddle
with an Iambic only keyer or Ultimatic mode and a dual lever paddle to
send decent CW.
The problem with dual paddles is that I squeeze too often and end up
generating garbage. And that nasty Iambic B mode sends out the
'extraneous' extra element at the end!
Ultimatic mode makes sense to my mind - I close the dash paddle and out
comes dashes, close the dot paddle and out comes dots. The last paddle
activated gets priority. It allows the insertion of one or more dots
(dashes) in a string of dashes (dots) as well. It makes sense to my
mind - the paddle that I close last is what is produced.
I know there are not many users of this mode today, mainly because the
popularity and convenience of the Curtis keyer chip and a few others
encouraged the world to Iambic long ago. Ultimatic was the original
keyer mode and was the main thing available back in the '50s and '60s.
It is just more natural to me than those alternating dots and dashes.
Those who must do 'slap' keying or must use a single lever paddle with
an Iambic keyer might want to try Ultimatic mode - it is available in
some of the K1EL keyers (the K12 is one) as well as several others (but
no internal keyers that I am aware of).
Ultimatic users 'stand up' and request that it be added to the K3
internal keyer! Wayne did give a strong 'maybe' when I asked.
73,
Don W3FPR
DOUGLAS ZWIEBEL wrote:
Hi all....
Before the K3, I used my computer (contesting) to generate the "stock"
cw. I used a Kansas City Keyer for the hand keying, connected to the
rig using a Y connector for the CW in. Worked well.
With the K3, I still us a computer (contesting) to generate the
"stock" cw (CQ, 59905, TU, etc). My paddle now goes directly into the
K3 (separate jack from the computer).
When I first tried this, it was terrible. I hated the keying and
couldn't get it to feel right. Then (duh) I read the manual and
switched to iambic B and all was good with the world. This is my
setup now. I was/am more than happy to regain some space on my
desktop (physical, not computer). For my needs, I see zero reason to
have external keyer above and beyond the computer needed for
contesting. For casual Qs, I find the K3 to be VFB.
de Doug KR2Q
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