[CW] "Spot" Buttons

[George, W5YR]

John, in all fairness, why is it so important that one zero-beat another
station as precisely as the notion of a Spotting Button would imply?

Almost anyone can tell by ear when they have tuned in a signal that comes
close to matching their sidetone signal frequency. Unless the other station
is running a 50 Hz or 100 Hz filter, that will be "close enough" for you to
be heard.

Even with a Spotting Button, you still have to push it and either hold it or
not and then tune the dial and then either release the button or press it
again to toggle it off. About the same number of operations as with the
Icom.

Personally, I find that I can tune any station to within 10-20 Hz of my
offset frequency just by listening. Takes a little practice which is greatly
enhanced if you feed the receiver audio into the DigiPan program and use a,
say, 700 Hz marker on the waterfall. You just tune until the received
station's track is under the marker line. A little practice with this and I
bet you could easily get within shouting distance.

As to displaying the offset frequency, I have never found an instance in
which I really needed to know the exact frequency, which is adjustable in
steps of 50 Hz, if I recall correctly. Set up whatever sounds right and
there you are. IT may be 600 or 650 Hz but what is the point of knowing
exactly which it is?

Same with a speed control. You adjust the keyer speed until it sounds
"right" for your purposes of the moment. Not knowing whether the exact value
is 23 or 25 wpm has never been a hardship.

Of course, most all of these problems disappear, along with the element
delay/truncation by using a Logikey keyer. As someone posted, just think of
the price of the keyer as akin to the price you pay for a good mic to
replace the hand mic that comes with the radio.

I can see that we don't agree on the relative importance of these issues,
but I have been using a PRO for mostly CW since they came out with the
original model and now use the 746PRO and the PRO2 side by side. I have
never felt handicapped by lack of any of the features you desire. Maybe I am
just too easy to please with that super receiver and top-notch transmitter
sound!   <:}

73/72, George
Amateur Radio W5YR -  the Yellow Rose of Texas
Fairview, TX 30 mi NE of Dallas in Collin county EM13QE
"Starting the 58th year and it just keeps getting better!"
w5yr@att.net





----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Rippey" <w3uls@3n.net>
To: <cw@mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2003 3:13 PM
Subject: [CW] "Spot" Buttons


> I don't know if I'm the only one who finds the lack of a "Spot" button on
> ICOM's PRO series a significant nuisance. Yaesus and Ten-Tecs continue to
> provide spotting buttons, but not ICOM.
>
> Apparently, ICOM thinks CW is going the way of the DoDo bird, and
therefore
> is uninterested in providing such a basic feature on its radios. To spot a
> CW signal on a "PRO," you use the "Bk-In" button, which cycles between
off,
> semi-break-in, and full break-in. You turn off "Bk-In,"  press your key to
> get a steady sidetone (if you are using a paddle you need to have a key
> plugged in as well), zero-beat the sidetone with the signal, then push
> "Bk-In" once or twice to get back to semi or full break-in. This requires
> pushing a tiny button three times every time you want to zero-beat a CW
> signal. From what I can tell of the forthcoming IC-7800, the same
> arrangement will be carried over in this top-of-the-line transceiver.
>
> Further nuisances: In the case of the IC-746PRO which I own, you can
adjust
> the sidetone but there is no readout to know what it is--you have to
guess.
> Also, there is no readout of the speed setting of the built-in keyer. (The
> keyer itself is exemplary, there are some convenient settings such as
> adjustable rise times, and the keying envelope seems to be fb, so it is
not
> all bad.)
>
> We CW fans ought to let ICOM know that there is still a demand for rigs
> that make it simple to tune a CW signal, provide a readout of the
sidetone,
> etc. Otherwise, we might see Yaesu make the same judgment. I doubt if
> Ten-Tec would follow suit, though.
>
> 73,
> John, W3ULS
>
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