[1000mp] Yaesu FT1000 Key Clicks

[Ian White, G3SEK]

Earl W Cunningham wrote:
>Adam, VA7OJ wrote:
>
>"The following links may be of relevance to this topic:...."
>==========
>Thanks for the info, Adam.
>
>I went to those URLs and they were very enlightening.  It is interesting
>that W8WWV came to the same conclusion that I did (CW rise time of 4 msec
>is clicky and 8 msec is relatively clean).  His method was monitoring the
>transmitted signal on an o'scope and mine was monitoring the transmitted
>signal on another receiver.
>
>Great reading for anyone, regardless of the transceiver they are using.
>

It certainly is! The specific page is (enter as one long line):
http://www.seed-solutions.com/gregordy/Amateur%20Radio/Experimentation/CW
Shape.htm

Another point that comes out very clearly from W8WWV's and W8JI's pages 
is that the key-click problem is not only about rise and fall times. 
It's also about avoiding sharp corners on the keying envelope - because 
those corners contain high-frequency components that we hear as clicks.

Sharp corners at the bottom of the keying envelope don't matter much, 
because the power there is low. But sharp corners at the top of the 
envelope are happening at full power, so those are bad news.

The really nasty click from the unmodified FT-1000 series happens when 
you release the key, and the power starts to drop very suddenly. The 
modifications hold the keying voltages up for an extra few hundred 
microseconds, and help to round-off that corner.

If you keep the corners nicely rounded, then you can afford to push the 
rise and fall times faster without undue key-clicks (BTDT with the old 
FT-221 for meteor-scatter on 2m, where 100wpm is a slow crawl  :-)



It's so good that we're building up some momentum to really nail this 
problem.

Sure, we all know it's not right that we're having to do this ourselves 
- but that's not a valid excuse for any FT-1000 owner to keep on 
clickin'!


-- 
73 from Ian G3SEK         'In Practice' columnist for RadCom (RSGB)
                            Editor, 'The VHF/UHF DX Book'
http://www.ifwtech.co.uk/g3sek