[CW] I'll be on the air "with bells on"

[Richard Knoppow]

    I remember occasionally hearing commercial stations that sounded 
like that. Got the same sound on my transmitter when adjusting the 
keying wave form. I prefer crisper keying. I found the optimum wave 
shape was an attack and decay of about 5 milliseconds. My old 
transmitter was a keyed oscillator and buffer so the keying shape could 
be done as you mention by an inductor and capacitor in the keying line. 
Very simple. The idea is to get the keying wave form fast enough to be 
crisp but slow enough not to generate key clicks.

On 11/18/2023 10:04 AM, Radio KH6O wrote:
> 
> Over on the Radio Officers maritime email list, Dave (N1EA) once 
> mentioned that a coastal station's signal had a bell-like quality to it.
> 
> The attached article from ARRL's Hints and Kinks describes how to obtain 
> such a tone -- it's referred to as "soft keying" and it's pretty simple 
> in that it only calls for a series inductor and a parallel capacitor.
> 
> This gives new meaning to the old expression, "I'll be there with bells on."
> 
> 73,
> Jeff KH6O


-- 
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL
SKCC 19998