I wrote: > Thank goodness for iambic mode A. I never understood how mode B, > the result of a logic design error in an early (1960s) electronic keyer > design, caught on.
Bill wrote: >I built a Mini-MOS key (from a 73 magazine article) back in 1979. It >has dot and dash memories -- the quality that gives it Mode B. It >takes extra circuitry to do this -- it's not just a "logic design >error". And Dan wrote: >I had a Heathkit keyer on which I learned iambic, and it was all >discrete logic gates and RC circuits. No ICs. It did exactly what >the schematic said it would do. No error there. True, mode B did catch on (long before 1979) and circuits and chips were purposely designed to implement it. But the evil that spawned mode B occurred in an improperly designed keyer from the mid-1960s. Somewhere I've specific details...but not with me now. >I don't find Mode B timing impossible - in fact, it is more relaxed >than mode A -- you let go of the paddles a lot sooner. Which is the **only** "advantage" that can be claimed for mode B, though I see no value to this "advantage" and a "lot" sooner is not how I would quantify it. If mode B reduced the number of paddle manipulations required over mode A, it would have purpose. But exactly the same amount of paddle manipulation is required regardless of character sent. >I think the bottom line is that you prefer whatever technique >you've trained on. There's 100 percent agreement here! Learn one mode and the other will seem impossible. I haven't any moral objections to mode B, just to the firmware designers who design an embedded keyer in a rig to use only one mode and that mode is mode B! (Example...the nasty FT-817!!) For whatever reasons some such firmware designers seem more often to choose mode B, so I actually recommend that mode B be the mode learned if one is just learning iambic keying. Thank goodness the Elecraft keyers allow either mode! 73, Mike / KK5F _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
