Hi All,
I have only tried using he CW reading feature on my K3 a few times. Like
most code readers, it misses a lot, and a little interference can throw it
off track fairly easily. It takes a pretty good signal to minimize the
errors. But I did check once by having it copy W1AW. There are two
benefits to trying that. First, the CW is machine sent, so it's nearly
perfect. Secondly, W1AW has such a good signal that interference issues are
minimal. The reader did very well in that test. There were very few
errors, and word separation was very good. I would strongly suggest that
you check your K3 in the same manner to see if you are getting the word
spacing problem.
It was also interesting to watch my own sending. I've always thought my
sending was reasonably good, and the reader did confirm that by showing the
text I was sending in pretty much the correct text and spacing. But if I
got the least bit casual about it, the reader reflected that as well.
Spacing was the big issue, although most of my errors were exaggerated
spaces rather than insufficient spacing. But I send with somewhat
exaggerated spacing between words on purpose. I try to send words correctly
spaced, and then leave a slightly extended space between words. I think
this helps the receiving station clearly identify just what the word is I am
sending. Every so often expresses appreciation for my doing it that way.
In my view, I'm not sure there is a greater CW "sin" than running words
and/or letters together.
Interestingly, this process pointed out a glaring error that I have probably
been making forever. That was in how I sent my call. I have a "K" on the
end of my call, and I've always had problems in contest exchanges, etc. with
the other station truncating my call to just a two letter suffix, presumably
thinking my last letter "K" was asking them to transmit. It only takes a
slight hesitation to cause the reader to reflect that. I kept seeing my
call appear on the reader as "W7AQ K" rather than "W7AQK". In thinking
about it, it made me realize how easy it is to slip into these little bad
habits. Some stations send their calls with insufficient spacing between
letters. Things that we send repeatedly, like call, name, QTH, etc. seem to
be common candidates for this type of error. It's as if, on occasion, we
develop our own rhythm for sending these standard items in violation of the
standard timing and spacing rules. And some folks just plain don't put the
right number of "dits" in what they send. I heard one W6 station who
repeatedly sent his call with 5 dits in the number 6, as well as repeatedly
sending a "5" for an "H". In cases like that, the reader won't lie! But
your brain won't lie either. You will probably get that "hey, wait a
minute" feeling about what you are hearing.
Anyway, I then used the reader to "retrain" myself to send my call so that
it did not insert an extra space between the "Q" and the "K". It was a hard
habit to break. Years of doing it wrong aren't easily erased. But I would
strongly recommend that folks use the reader now and then to monitor their
own sending. On a transmitted signal, the reader is very accurate in my
view. And if you intend to utilize the K3's capability of translating your
CW into RTTY, you better have your sending timing in good shape.
Anyway, as I said above, the W1AW test is about the best way I know to
really check out the reading capability of your K3. If it doesn't read that
pretty well, I would guess you have a problem with your K3.
Dave W7AQK
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Childers, N5GE" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 9:08 PM
Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K3 Auto CW copy
On Tue, 20 May 2008 20:12:14 -0700, you wrote:
I have noticed that the CW text display of auto copied CW signals often
does
not get the spacing between words and runs words together. When I copy the
same text in my head the word spacing seems pretty good. Also when I send
CW
it will also run words together. So I am wondering about a tweak to the
algorithm. Making a computer copy CW of unknown speed must be difficult.
But
everyone knows my code is perfect :)
I noticed the same thing when I was sending, but when I paid more attention
to
making sure my timing between words was consistent the spacing improved
along
with my sending ;o) What a nice tool for improving my sending!
On the other hand I had a QSO with a near local (80 miles) and he had
trouble copying me because of QRM. I was dialed down to 50 Hz and heard no
other signal present. I opened up to 1 KHz and there they all were. Isn't
that great or what?
Mike Scott - AE6WA
Tarzana, CA (DM04 / near LA)
K3-100 #508/ KX1 #1311
_______________________________________________
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
