Carter, There are several possibilities for hooking up a straight key to the K2. If you want to retain the use of paddles, try the connections shown on page 95 of the manual (be certain you have auto-detect turned on in the menu). Adapting to the existing plug is an exercise I leave to your own resources.
If you don't mind plugging and unplugging the straight key to exchange it with paddles, then just change the plug to a 3.5mm stereo plug - if you wire the handkey to both the tip and ring, then you can use it with the auto-detect as above. There was a proper stereo plug supplied with your K2 kit parts. You can also wire the handkey only to the tip of the stereo plug, but you nust change the K2 menu to 'INP Hand' or you will get a string of dots when you press the key. This is the most positive method should you find trouble with the auto-detect feature. You can also wire the handkey to both the tip and ring as above and use this method - the K2 internal keyer will ignore the normal dash connection on the ring of the plug when in INP Hand. Take your pick - there have been some reports that auto-detect sometimes gives a string of dots or dashes, and my thoughts are that it may be caused by contact bounce at the handkey, so keep the contacts clean if you use that method - dragging a clean piece of non-glossy paper while holding a slight pressure on the key is usually enough to clean and slightly burnish the contacts, and I have seen reports that a tiny drop of a contact treatment stuff (I think it is called DeOxIt, but my memory is fuzzy). That is about the extent of my information on connecting a hand key to the K2. 73, Don W3FPR > -----Original Message----- > > Hi Everybody, > I want to use my Bencher STRAIGHT KEY with my old Elecraft K2. > Can you folks tell me what I have to do? > My paddles work just great, but I wanted to try out my straight > key. It has > a 1/4" phono plug on its cable... > TIA, and 73, > > Carter > _______________________________________________ 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
