I will respond since I have been "quoted". First as to my experience. I have been a ham for 43 years, and I have been able to copy at least 5 wpm code since I was 7 years old which is when I first took my novice test. I have come up through the ranks using discrete RX TX rigs like a Viking-2 and a HQ-170, transceivers, and now SDR radios. My present rigs include a Paragon, an Orion and 2 SDR-1000's and a K-1 plus a smattering of others. My past rigs have included Drake lines, TS-820 and a TT 580 Delta, and older rigs like home brew 6146's that used discrete manual TR. In fact my first TR switch was a knife switch and a standby switch on my S-40B rx. So I've had experience from doing the Curly shuffle (as in nyuck nyuck nyuck) from going from TX to RX to the seamless 100+ wpm QSK of the 580D. The 580 was the finest QSK radio I ever owned. It had some other problems but its QSK was flawless.
Of the rigs I own the K-1 is closest to the 580 in terms of QSK experience. The next is the Paragon and the next is the Orion. The SDR-1000 is not a QSK radio. The SDR-1000 is like a TS-820. It is a semi-break-in radio. There is no speed that QSK is a practical reality. Its semi-break-in behavior has some variability, and my experience is that you need 300 to 400 msec of turn around time to make the experience somewhat smooth. By variability I mean if you set the turnaround to 300msec it can be 300 or longer depending on when the command to turn around gets sent and processed. As to the out of the box experience, I never used the built in keyer at all. I use an external keyer which I plug into the "key" line on the back of the radio. I do not use the "sidetone" in the radio at all. In my opinion it is unusable. I use the sidetone in the keyer. I use the semi-break-in feature, and I also use a foot pedal. The foot pedal has a more consistent latency for turning around from TX to RX than the semi break-in does, but since I'm not used to a foot pedal I don't care much for the experience. I tried using the serial port as the keying line since people have reported that to be a better experience, but in the present iteration of the software, I can't tell the difference between the "key" line and the serial method as described in the SDR manual. I tried using a K1EL keyer to control the PTT turn around and didn't find that to be a particularly better experience than using the built in semi break-in. The foot pedal is definitely the fastest turn around signal but that is because it relies on me and not some time out circuit to turn the thing around. I have considered building a precise ripple counter so I can get very consistent time out times that are independent of any microprocessor and using that to key the PTT line, but that is another project. As to the side tone, I feed the side tone out of my keyer into my firebox mixer, and I find this to be a very adequate solution to the side tone issue. As to the CW experience do not think in terms of QSK. I have come to believe QSK is generally an over rated measure of CW utility anyway. Most of us never really take advantage of QSK, that is the ability to hear between individual characters, and if you really want QSK get a separate TX RX and build a diode switch like the old Johnson solution. QSK is really the pipe dream of CW net aficionados not the general ham population. What you need to have for a good CW experience is similar to what you need to have a good game of ping pong. You have to connect to the rhythm and brain process of the person you are talking to in such a way to seamlessly keep the ball going. Tick..Tick..Tick is the key to an enjoyable CW experience. If it becomes tick..tick.........tick....tick.......tick..tick you will not have that great an experience. Also in terms of DX-ing if you don't have the tick..tick experience but a tick.....tick experience you will miss the DX calling you and slow up the pileup. I explain this not to be critical of the SDR experience, but to be honest and to try to better define what could possibly be changed to get closer to tick..tick. The SDR is one of the finest CW DX radios on the market today. The panadapter, filtering scheme and the front end are phenomenal. You won't get to a better CW experience from raw processing. I run a pretty high horse power setup a 3.3g P4 with a bunch of ram and a firebox soundcard. The CPU runs at single digits. The processor is not being taxed in the least. One thing that might help is instead of relying on some software timeout to change the state from TX to RX you might implement an interrupt driven method and develop an external controller that is not dependent on XP to drive the turnaround event, and make the signal to turn around a high priority on the list of things to do as things are being processed. I think given the way this radio works that is the best you are going to do. The process of going from RX to TX is very consistent. It is not driven by software, at least in my setup but by a hard signal. I think we need to do the same thing to go from TX back to RX. I think an external processing device also could take into account variations in speed, since the TR interval for 45wpm is dramatically different than the TR interval for 10wpm due to the elemental length of a dit. The interval is different, but its difference is predictable so it shouldn't be too hard to take that into account. What I would envision is a memory keyer that also outputs a variable tone sidetone that would correspond to the offset you choose in the SDR, and a PPT turnaround that drives the transmit interval changes the interval in correct correspondence to the change in speed. This gives you good sidetone and best TR control given the constraints of this system. All this being said I use my SDR every day to make CW contacts and I prefer it in general to my Orion or my Paragon. I clearly understand the trade offs between the radios. If I am trying to work Andaman I would probably choose the Orion. The Orion is much more ergonomic in a pileup. It has dual receive and a very good capability to tail end. A much better ability than the SDR. This may change as the SDR updates its RX capability. The SDR in terms of its raw receiving power is slightly better in my mind than the Orion but it does not yet possess as complete a feature set. For searching the band for DX I have virtually abandoned the Orion. The SDR with its point and shoot dynamic tuning is a quantum better in its behavior when searching the band. You spend almost all your time listening where signals are and almost no time listening where signals aren't. N4PY's software gives a rudimentary kind of point and shoot for the Orion but it is more of a static snapshot of the band and not the dynamic picture of the band the SDR gives. If I am rag-chewing on 75 I tend to choose the Orion. I have multiple antennas and multiple amplifiers. I can get 4 KW signals out simultaneously. I have the SDR and the Orion feeding a external 3 channel mixer. I can participate with my rag-chew in one ear, and tune the CW bands and work DX in the other. For me each radio brings a different set of tools and a different experience. There is a trade off with each radio. Each radio represents virtually the same performance in terms of raw receiver capability. They both represent in my opinion "mans best receiver". But the implementation of each has advantages and disadvantages. They represent entirely different design philosophies. I am very willing to live within the constraints of the design philosophy of each radio and exploit the advantages of each to enhance my style of operation. For me the proposition is not either/or, it's both/and. 73 W9OY __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
