What's this magic called winkeyer?
That (or something similar) is what W1EL calls it. If I recall rightly, it
consists of a PIC micro-controller that produces dots and dashes from
paddles. In addition, the keyer connects to the PC, from which it receives
ASCII to be transmitted as CW.
The PC can tell the keyer to speed up or slow down using (escaped) commands.
Also, the keyer sends back status messages, so the PC knows what's being
sent.
From memory, the keyer has some refinements. It can extend the leading
dot/dash to compensate for amplifier key-up delay. This is a good idea,
because amps with mechanical relays (with tunsten contacts ;-) can take up to
30 ms to come in-line, and that's more than enough to stuff up the leading
character.
As far as I can tell, the only thing the keyer has in common with 'windows' is
the closed sources. I believe the command/status protocol is published.
Is it affordable?
Last time I looked the keyer kit was pretty reasonable.
Is this what the hot shots are using?
Well, Rein's got one :-)
No doubt using a hardware keyer takes considerable load off the CPU. And you
can use VOX with slow amps and not truncate the first character. So I guess
it would be useful at multi-op stations.
Having said that, at pop-gun ZL6QH we've always used software keyers (DOS CT,
and later Writelog/Win98) and there have never been reported problems with
hiccups or dropouts in the CW at contest speeds of 28-34 WPM.
Wilbert, ZL2BSJ
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